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OSWALD CRAY. 


BY 




A. t '^AASt/ry \ Ka>QJU 

HENRY WOOD. 


AUTHOR OF “ THE SHADOW OP ASHLYDYAT,” “ SQUIRE TREVLTN’S HEIR ; 
OR, TREVLYN HOLD,” '‘THE CASTLE’S HEIR; OR, LORD OAKBURN’s 
DAUGHTERS,” “VE^NER’S PRIDE,” “THE CHANNIN6S,” “THE 

earl’s heirs,” “a 'life’s secret,” “east LYNNE,” 

“ THE FOGGY NIGHT AT* OPFORD,” “ THE MYSTERY,” 

“,T^E LOST BANK NOTE,” “THE RUNAWAY 
MATCH,” “William allair,” “the 
HAUNTED tower,” ETC., ETC. 


Printed from the author’s Manuscript and advanced Proof-sheets, pur- 
chased by us from Mrs. Henry "Wood, and issued here in 
advance of the publication of the work in Europe. 



P l)ilabclpl)ta: 

T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS, 

306 CHESTNUT STREET. 



\ 


" ■■ ■ '-nud^ 

i' 


Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1864, by 
T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS, 

In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Eastern 

District of Pennsylvania. 


4 




CONTENTS. 


CHAPTSE PAGE 

1. — Dr. Davenal 21 

11. — Lady Oswald’s Letter 80 

III. — Miss Bettina Davenal 36 

lY. — Eetrospect 41 

Y. — ;N’eaPs Curiosity 49 

YI. — A Tacit Bargain 55 

YII. — Edward Davenal 62 

YIII. — A Treat for JSTeal 68 

IX. — Lady Oswald’s Journey t2 

X. — Waiting for Xews 79 

XI. — Pain 85 

XII. — A Whim of Lady Oswald’s 91 

XIII. — Mark Cray’s “Mistake” 97 

XIY. — Xeal’s Dismay 101 

XY. — The Night Yisitor to Dr. Davenal 108 

XYI. — Commotion 114 

XYII. — Going Down to the Funeral..... 121 

XYIII. — Curious Doubts 128 

XIX.— The Will 134 

XX. — Neal’s Yisit 139 

XXL — Dr. Davenal’s “Folly” 143 

XXII. — Company for Mr. Oswald Cray 150 

XXIII. — More Instilled Doubt 158 

XXIY. — The Last Meeting 165 

XXY. — A Special Favor for Neal 173 

XXYI. — The Doctor’s Birthday 181 

XXYII. — Bad News for Hallingham 187 

XXYIII. — Last Hours 196 


19 


20 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER PAQB 

XXIX.— Sorrow 201 

XXX. — Work for the Future 207 

XXXI. — Mark’s New Plans 216 

XXXII. — Entering on a New Home 225 

XXXIIL — Hope Deferred 230 

XXXIY. — An Unpleasant Yisit 235 

XXXY. — A Flourishing Company 244 

XXXYL— A Slight Check 248 

XXXYII. — In the Temple Gardens 254 

XXXYIII. — An Irruption on Mark Cray 259 

XXXIX. — Was she Never to be at Peace? 265 

XL. — Mrs. Benn’s Wrongs 273 

XLI. — An Unwelcome Yisitor 279 

XLII. — Commotion 285 

XLIII. — Day-dreams Rudely Interrupted 289 

XLIY. — The Evening of the Blow 295 

XLY. — Hard Usage for Dick 302 

XLYL — Weary Days 308 

XLYIL— Something “Turned Up” at Last 314 

XLVIIL— A New Home 318 

XLIX. — A Bell Ringing out at Midnight 325 

L. — A Desolate Night 332 

LI. — No Hope 337 

LII. — Dreadful Treachery 343 

LIII. — The Gallant Captain home again 348 

LIY. — Light 354 

LY. — The Bargain Sealed 360 

LYI. — “ Finance,” this time 367 

LYIL— Six Months Later 372 


OSWALD 


OKAY. 


CHAPTER 1. 

DR. DA VENAL. 

It was market-daj at Hallingham 
— a moderate-sized and once beautiful 
town, but cut up now bj the ugly 
railroad which has chosen to take its 
way right through it, and whose large 
station is built on the very spot where 
the Abbey Gardens used to flourish. 
These were famous gardens once ; and 
not so long ago they were the evening 
resort of the townspeople, who would 
promenade there at sunset, whatever 
the time of year. Since the gardens 
had been seized upon for the railway 
purposes, a bitter feud of opinion had 
reigned in the place : the staid old 
inhabitants mourning and resenting 
their town^s desecration ; the younger 
welcoming the new rail, its station, 
and its bustle, with all their might 
and main, as a grateful inbreak on 
their monotonous life. The trains 
from London (distant some sixty or 
seventy miles) would go shrieking 
and whistling through the town at 
any hour of the day or night ; and, so 
far, peace for Hallingham was over. 

Possibly it was because the town 
was fanious for little else, that these 
Abbey Gardens were so regretted. 
Hallingham Abbey had been renowned 
in the ages gone by; very little of 
its greatness was left to it now. The 
crumbling hand of Time had partially 
destroyed the fifle old building, an 


insignificant portion of it, just sufficient 
to impart a notion of its style of 
architecture and the century of its 
erection^ alone remaining. And this 
small portion had been patched and 
propped, and altogether altered and 
modernized, by way of keeping it 
together. It was little more than an 
ordinary dwelling-house now ; and at 
^he present moment was to let to any 
suitable tenant who would take it. 
But, poor as it was in comparison 
with some of the modern dwellings in 
its vicinity, it was still in a degree 
bowed down to by Hallingham. There 
was something high-sounding in the 
address, The Abbey, Hallingham,^’ 
and none but a gentleman born and 
bred must venture to treat for it. 

It stood alone, with extensive 
gardens in front, and the space once 
occupied by the chapel behind. All 
traces of the chapel building were 
gone now, but its mossy gravestones 
were embedded in the- ground still, 
and the spot was held as sacred as a 
graveyard. The Latin inscriptions 
on some of these stones could yet be 
made out ; and that on one attracted 
as much imaginative speculation as 
the famed gravestone in the cloisters 
of Worcester Cathedral. A few 
words only were on it, signifying 
buried in misery no name, no 
date. Thoughtful natures would 
glance at that stone as they passed 
it, with an inward breath of hope — 
perhaps of prayer — that the misery 
( 21 ) 


22 


OSWALD CRAY. 


experienced by its unhappy tenant in 
this world, had been exchanged for a 
life of immortality. This graveyard 
was not a thoroughfare, and few cared 
to walk there who were absorbed in 
the bustle and pleasures of life ; but 
the aged, the invalid, the mourner, 
might be seen there on fine days, 
seated on its one solitary bench, and 
buried in solemn reflections. A short 
space of time, more or less, as it 
might happen, and they would be 
lying under gravestones in their turn : 
a short space of time, my friends, and 
you and I shall be equally lying 
there. 

The broad space of the public road 
running along the Abbey^s front di- 
vided it from the gardens, which were 
the public property of the town. On 
the opposite side of these gardens, 
furthest from the Abbey, were the 
buildings of the new station and the 
lines upon lines of rails. 

It is well to say lines upon lines of 
rails-! Hallingham said it — said it 
with a groan. Not content with a 
simple line or a double line of rails, 
sufficient for ordinary traffic, the rail- 
way authorities had made it into a 
“junction.” “Hallingham Junction!” 
— and more lines branched off from it 
than you would care to count. • This 
was at the east end of the town ; 
beyond was the open country. Going 
towards the town, some of the lines 
made a sort of semicircle, cut off a 
corner of the town, and branched 
away into space. Iris true it was a 
very shabby little corner of the town 
that had thus been cut off, but Hal- 
lingham did not the less resent the 
invasion. 

Walking down to Hallingham along 
the broad road leading from the 
Abbey, its busiest part was soon 
gained. Let us look at it to-day. 
Tuesday. It is market-day at Hal- 
lingham, and the hot July sun streams 
full on the people^s heads, for there is 
no room for the raised umbrellas, and 
they afford little continuous shade. 
It is the large, wide, open space in 
front of the town-hall, and here from 
time immemorial the market-people 


have sat to chaffer and change, barter 
and sell. Countrywomen expose their 
poultry and eggs, their butter and 
cream-cheese, and their other wares, 
all on this spot. No matter what the 
weather, in the dog-days of summer, 
in the sharp snow, the pitiless storm 
of winter, here they are every Tuesday 
under their sea of umbrellas, which 
must be put down to allow space to 
the jostling crowd when the market 
gets full. The town had been talking 
the last ten years of erecting a covered 
market-house ; but it was not b 9 gun 
yet. / 

Still on, down the principal street, 
leaving this market-place to the left, 
and what was called the West-end of 
the town was gained. Proud Hal- 
lingham had named it West-end in 
imitation of London. It was nothing 
but a street; its name. New Street, 
proclaiming that it was of more recent 
date than some of the other parts. It 
was really a fine street, wide and 
open, with broad white pavements, 
and its houses were mostly private 
ones, their uniformity of line being 
broken by a detached house here and 
there. It was a long street, and five 
or six other by-streets and turnings 
branched off from it at right angles. 

Lying back from the street at the 
corner of one of these turnings was a 
handsome white house, detached, with 
a fine pillared portico entrance in its 
centre,, and a plate on the door. It 
was Mly as conspicuous to the street 
as were the other houses which abut- 
ted on the pavement. A level lawn 
was before it, divided from the street 
by low light iron railings, with a small 
light gate in the midst, opposite the 
entrance- door. Narrow flower-beds, 
filled with gay and charming flowers, 
skirted the lawn before the rails ; on 
the sides, but not in front, and close 
to the railings behind the flower-beds, 
flourished some evergreens, making a 
sort of screen. An enclosed garden 
lay at the back of the house, and 
beyond the garden were the stables. 
On the brass plate — you could read it 
from the street — was inscribed, “ Dr.4) 
Davenal.” 


OSWALD CRAY. 


23 


He was the chief surgeon of Hal- 
lingham. Why he had taken his de- 
gree — a recent accession of dignity- 
people were pu-zzled to tell. Had he 
cared for high-sounding titles they 
could have understood it ; but he did 
not care for such. Had he been a 
slave to example, that might have ac- 
counted for it, for this degree-taking, 
as you must be aware, has come into 
fashion of late years ; had he wished 
to court notoriety, he might have 
thought a degree a means to bring it 
to him. But Hallingham knew Dr. 
Davenal better. He was a simple- 
minded man, who liked to be out 
of the fashion instead of in it : 
and whether he wrote doctor or 
surgeon after his name, he could not 
be more deservedly renowned in his 
locality than he already was. He was 
a skilful surgeon, a careful and suc- 
cessful operator, and • his advice in 
purely medical cases was sought in 
preference to that of any pjiysician in 
the town. A rumor arose, untrace^ 
able to any certain source, that his 
son Edward, a dashing young captain 
of infantry, had urged^he step upon 
him, with a view to ennance his own 
standing with his brother officers. 
The son of Mr. Davenal, a country 
surgeon, might be thought slightingly 
of : the son of Dr. Davenal need not 
be. Be that as it might, the rumor 
gained some credence, although it 
died away again. One patient only 
ventured to question Dr. Davenal as 
to its truth, and then The doctor 
laughed heartily in his patient's face, 
and said he expected handsome Ned 
could hold his own without reference 
to whether his father was a royal 
physician or a parish apothecary. 

Before we go on, I may tell you 
that you will like Dr. Davenal. He 
was a good man. He had his faults, 
as we all have ; but he was a good 
man. 

On this same hot July afternoon, 
there came careering down the street, 
in its usual quick fashion, a handsome 
open carriage, drawn by a pair of 
beautiful bays. Dr. Davenal did not 
see why, because he was a doctor, his 


carriage should be a sober one, his 
horses tame and rusty. Truth to say, 
he was given to spend rather than to 
save. I have told you he had faults, 
and perhaps you will call that one. 
He sat in his accustomed seat, low 
in the carriage, his servant Roger 
mounted far above him. He rarely 
drove himself ; never when paying 
professional visits. A surgeon needs 
to keep his hand steady. Roger was 
a favorite servant ; fourteen years he 
had been in his present service, and 
he was getting fat upon it. Dr. 
Davenal sometimes told him jokingly 
that he should have to pension him 
off, for his weight was getting too 
much for the bays. The same could 
not be said of Dr. Davenal ; he was a 
spare man, of middle height, with a 
broad white forehdSd, dark eyes, and 
a careworn expression. 

The carriage was bowling quickly 
past the market-place — Dr. DavenaPs 
time was too precious to allow of his 
being driven slowlj; — when a woman 
suddenly descried it. Quitting her sit- 
ting place in the market, she set off to 
run towards it, flinging up her hands in 
agitation, and overturning her small 
board of wares with the haste she 
made.^ Poor wares — gooseberries and 
white and red currants, displayed on 
cabbage leaves to attract the eager 
eyes and watering lips of juvenile 
passers-by ; and common garden 
flowers tied up in nosegays — a half- 
penny a nosegay, a halfpenny a leaf. 
Roger saw the movement. 

Here’s Dame Hundley flying on to 
us, sir.” 

Dr. Davenal, who was very much 
in the habit of falling into thought, 
seeing and hearing nothing as he 
went along, raised his head, and turn- 
ing it in the direction of the market, 
met her anxious countenance. 

‘‘Pull up, Roger,” he said to his 
servant. 

The countenance was a tearful one 
by the time it had reached the doctor’s 
side ; and then the woman seemed to 
become aware that she had done an 
unwarrantable thing in thus sum- 
marily arresting Dr. Davenal — not 


24 


OSWALD CRAY. 


that there was any thing in his face 
or manner to remind her of it. 

Oh, sir, I beg ten thousand par- 
dons for making thus bold ! Seeing 
your carriage, I started off in the 
moment's impulse. IVe been a-fear- 
ing all the morning as I sat there, 
that maybe you might be out when I 
called, after market was over. He is 
no better, sir ; he is worser and 
weaker. 

‘'Ah 1’^ said the doctor. “ Couldn’t 
he eome in to-day 

“I don’t believe there’ll ever be 
any more coming in again for him,” 
was the woman’s answer, as she 
strove to suppress her tears. “ ‘ Moth- 
er,’ says he to me this morning, when 
I tried to get him up, ‘it’s o’ no use 
trying. I — I — ”’ she fairly broke 
down. ^ 

“ Does the parish doctor see him 
regularly ?” 

“ He comes, sir, about every third 
day. He caught his eye on that 
bottle of physic that you wrote for 
and told me to get made up, and he 
laid hold of it and asked where I got 
that, and I told him I had made bold 
to take my poor boy in to Dr. Davenal. 
So, then, he was put up about it, and 
said if we was going to be grand 
patients of Dr. Davenal’s we didn’t 
want him. And I thought perhaps 
he mightn’t come again. But he did : 
he came in last night at dusk.” 

“ Has your son taken the physic ?” 

“ Yes, sir. I gave him the last 
dose afore I come away this morning. 
But he’s worse ; he’s a deal worse, 
sir : maybe it’s these hot days that’s 
trying him.” 

Dr. Davenal could have told her 
that he’ never would be any thing but 
worse in this world ; a little better, a 
little worse, according to the phases 
of the disease, and then would come 
the endyig. 

“I shall, I expect, be driving out 
of Hallingham your way this evening, 
Mrs. Hundley, and I’ll call and see 
him. Should any thing prevent it 
this evening, you may look for me 
to-morrow. I’ll be sure to come.” 

The same good, considerate man 


that he had ever been, sparing no 
trouble, no kindness, when life or 
health was at stake. “ I’ll be sure to 
come I” and the woman knew that he 
would be sure to come. How few 
medical men in his position would 
have condescended to say to this poor 
woman, “ I’ll be sure to come !” to 
say it in the kind tone, with the 
promise in his eyes as they looked 
straight into hers, as well as on his 
lips I He had fellow-practitioners in 
that town, their time not half taken 
up as his was, who would have 
loftily waved off poor Dame Hundley, 
a profitless patient in every sense, 
and sent her sorrow to the winds. 

Roger drove quickly on down the 
street between the rows of gay shops, 
and Dr. Davenal sat thinking of that 
poor woman’s sorrow. She was a 
widow, and this was her only son. 
Did the anticipated loss of that son 
strike on the chords of his own heart, 
and send them vibrating ? He had 
lost a son, and under unhappy auspices. 
Save that woman’s son, he knew he 
could not : the death fiat had gone 
forth in the Jell disease which had 
attacked him .^but he might possibly, 
by the exertion of his skill, prolong 
the life for a time, and certainly 
lighten its sufferings. Mrs. Hundley 
had toiled for this son, and brought 
him up well in her poor way, and had 
looked brightly forward to his helping 
her on in her old age. And he 
would have done this, for he was 
steadj^ loving, and dutiful. But it 
was not to be : God was taking him : 
and the mother in her alarm and 
grief scarcely saw why this should be. 
Not at the time that affliction falls, in 
its first brunt, can we see or believe in 
the love and wisdom that are always 
hidden within it. 

Roger pulled up at the doctor’s 
house, set his master down, and 
turned his horses round into the side 
lane — for it was not a street — to 
drive them to the stables. Dr. Dav- 
enal went through the gate, and went 
round the grass-plat to the house. 
As he was about to open the door 
with his latch-key, it was drawn open 


OSWALD CRAY. 


for him by his attentive in-door man- 
servant. 

You never saw so respectable a 
servant in all your life : a very model 
of a servant in looks, voice, and 
manner. About forty years of age, 
and rather tall, his slim, active figure 
gave him the appearance of being 
a younger man. His hair, brushed 
smooth and flat, was of a shiny black, 
and his white necktie and orthodox 
black clothes were without a spot. 
But — in spite of his excessive respec- 
tability as a man and a servant — 
there was something in the sharp 
features of the white face, in the fur- 
tive black eyes, that would lose their 
look of slyness when flung boldly 
into yours, which had never been cor- 
dially liked by Dr. Davenal. 

You saw me, Neal 
I was in your room, sir, speaking 
to Mr. Cray,’^ was the man^s answer : 
and in his low, respectful tones, his 
superior accent, there was really a 
sound of refinement pleasant to the 
ear. That refinement of voice and 
manner that may be caught from 
associating with the educated : not the 
refinement springing from the mind 
where it is innate. 

Has anybody been here 
Lady Oswald, sir. She apologized 
for coming when it was not your day 
for receiving town-patients, but she 
said she particularly wished to see 
you. , I think she scarcely believed 
me, sir, when I said you were out.” 

Dr. Davenal took his gold repeater 
from his pocket, where it lay loose, 
unattached to any chain, and glanced 
at it. A valuable watch : the grateful 
present of a rich man years ago, who 
believed that he owed his life, hu- 
manly speaking, to Richard Daven- 
aVs care and skill. 

Scarcely believed you I Why, 
she knows I am never home much 
before three o^clock. It wants two 
minutes now. Mr. Cray, if he is here, 
might have seen her.” 

Mr. Cray has but just come, sir. 
1 was showing him in when your car- 
riage drove to the door. Lady Os- 


25 

wald said she would call again later, 
sir.” 

Two minutes more, and three o’clock 
would strike, and Dr. Davenal’s door 
would be beset by patients. By 
country patients to-day : on Tuesdays 
he would be very busy with them, 
and the towns-people did not intrude 
unnecessarily upon him on that day : 
all the rest of the week’s days were 
for them. They would- come, these 
patients, and lay down their fee of a 
guinea to the surgeon, as they laid it 
down to a physician. Dr. Davenal 
would see them twice for that ; some- 
times more — several times more : he 
was not a covetous man, and he dis- 
tinguished between those who could 
well afford to pay him and those who 
could not. ‘ When these last would 
timidly put down the sovereign and 
shilling, rarely in paper, he would 
push it back to them. “No you 
paid me last time or so ; you don’t 
owe me any thing yet.” 

Of far-and-wide reputation, he had 
scarcely a minute in the day that he 
could call his own, or that was not in 
some way or other devoted to his 
profession. Chief visiting surgeon 
to the Hallingham Infirmary, and 
always taking the operations there in 
difficult cases, part of every day had 
to be spent at it. Early in the 
morning he saw patients at home, 
twice a week gratuitously ; at a 
quarter to ten he went out, and be- 
tween that time and three o’clock paid 
his round of calls and visited the in- 
firmary. At three he was at home to 
receive patients again ; at six he 
dined ; and it very rarely happened 
that he had not second visits to pay 
afterwards. Of course this usual rou- 
tine of duty was occasionally varied : 
visits at a distance had to be paid, 
necessitating post-horses to his close 
carriage, if no rail conducted to the 
place ; patients hovering between life 
and death must be seen ofteuer than 
once or twice in the day, perhaps in 
the night ; and sometimes a terrible 
case of accident would be brought 
into the infirmary, demanding the 


26 


OSWALD CRAY. 


utmost skill that the most perfect 
operator could give. In those cases, 
it was Dr. Davenal who was sent for 
by the house-surgeon ; none of the 
other visiting surgeons were so sure 
as he : and Dr. Davenal, though he 
had a whole dining-room full of 
patients waiting their turn to go in 
to him, guinea in hand, abandoned 
them alh and strode away to the in- 
firmary with his fleetest step. 

The dining-room was on the left 
of the enirance-hall : it was of large 
proportions. Opposite to it, on the 
right was a much smaller apartment, 
called by way of distinction “ Dr. 
l)avenal’s room.” It was in this last 
the doctor saw his patients, who 
would go into it from the dining-room 
in turn, one by one. The two rooms 
looked to the front, on either side the 
door, and the window in each was 
very large. They were not bay 
windows, but made in the same 
fashion, divided into three compart- 
ments, air of which might be opened 
separately. Dwarf Venetian blinds 
were carried up to the first pane in 
both windows, for the house was not 
sufficiently removed from the street 
to prevent curious passers-by from 
gazing in. Behind the doctor’s room 
was another room, opening from it, 
the windows of which looked on the 
evergreens skirting the very narrow 
path that ran between the side of the 
house and the railings bordering the 
lane : a path so narrow that nobody 
was supposed ever to go down it. 
This second room was Dr. DavenaPs 
bedchamber, used by him as such 
ever since the death of his wife. At 
the back of this chamber was another 
apartment, partially partitioned into 
two, one portion being NeaPs sleeping 
closet, which looked to the garden at 
the rear of the house ; the other was 
used as a butler’s pantry. 

Neal had an uncommon partiality 
for that pantry, and would be in it all 
hours of the day or night, though it 
was never meant that he should sit in 
it. It was to all intents and purposes 
a pantry only, and a very scantily 
lighted one. It had a high window 


of four square panes, looking dead on 
the evergreens, very dense just there, 
and on nothing else. There was a door 
by its side, opening on the evergreens 
also, and one with a slim figure,* 
as slim as Neal’s, for instance, could 
go out at that door if so disposed, and 
entwine* himself along the narrow 
path, braving the shrubs, past the 
windows of Dr. DavenaPs bedcham- 
ber, and emerge in front of the hguse. 
It was not at all, however, in Neal’s 
stipulated duties to do so. Quite the 
contrary. When Neal entered Dr. 
DavenaPs service, he was expressly 
ordered to keep that pantry door 
always fastened. It was impressed 
upon him by Miss Davenal that there 
was no necessity ever to unlock it : 
his plate was there, she observed, 
and light-fingered beggars frequented 
Hallingham, as they frequent most 
other places. 

On the opposite side, behind the 
dining-room, was the prettiest apart- 
ment in the house. It was called the 
garden-parlor, and opened to the gar- 
den at the back by means of glass 
doors. The state drawing-room was 
above, over the hall and dining-room, 
and the kitchens were down-stairs. 

Dr. DavenaPs room was scantily 
furnished. A shabby Kidderminster 
carpet, a square table, some horse- 
hair chairs, and a writing desk. Noth- 
ing else, except some books ranged 
round the walls, and a plaster bust 
or two. On the table, which was 
covered with a green-baize cloth bor- 
dered with yellow, lay some writing 
and blotting paper by the side of a 
large inkstand, and the desk was 
underneath the table on the carpet. 
It was the doctor’s habit to keep the 
desk there ; he could not have told 
why. If he required to open it, 
which was very seldom, for he never 
used it for writing on, he would lift it 
to the table and put it back when 
he had done with it. Some of the 
patients sitting at the table waiting 
for the doctor to come in, or enlarging 
on their complaints as he sat before 
them, had surreptitiously used it as a 
footstool, and the result was far from 


OSWALD CRAY. 


27 


improving to the polished mahogany ; 
but Dr. Davenal did not move it from 
its abiding-place. 

Tilting himself on a chair, in a 
fashion that threatened an overthrow 
backwards, with his feet on the edge 
of this very desk, sat a young man, 
carelessly humming a popular song. 
You heard Neal tell his master he 
was. there — Mr. Cray. His face was 
a sufficiently pleasing one, its com- 
plexion fair, its eyes a light blue. It 
was not a remarkable face in any 
way; might have been a somewhat 
insipid ono, but for these same blue 
eyes that lighted it up, and a gay 
smile that was ever ready on it All 
that Mr. Cray appeared likely to be 
remarkable for as yet, was a habit of 
pushing his hair back. It was rather 
light hair, of a shade between brown 
and flaxen, and he pushed it off his 
forehead inveterately, at all times and 
seasons. But what with the blue 
eyes, the winning smile, and a very 
taking voice and manner, he was be- 
ginning to win his way in Halling- 
ham. Dr. Davenal was glad that it 
should be so. He had taken this 
young man, Marcus Cray, by the 
hand, had made him his partner, and 
he desired nothing better than that he 
should win his way. 

But to win a way in a town is one 
thing : to win hearts in it is another ; 
and Dr. Davenal was certainly not 
prepared to hear, as he was about to 
do, that Mr. Cray had gained one 
particular heart, and had come then 
to ask his, Dr. DavenaPs, approbation 
in the matter. 

Neal threw open the door of his 
master’s room, bowed him in with the 
air of a groom of the chambers, and 
Mr. Cray started from his tilting posi- 
tion to find his feet. As they stood 
together his height was somewhat 
under the doctor’s, and his only reached 
the middle height. 

Is it you, Mark ?” said the doctor, 
quietly, rather surprised that he should 
be there at that hour of the day ; for 
Mr. Cray’s routine of duties did not I 
lie at the house of Dr. Davenal. ' 
^'Any bad report for me ?’•’ i 


Mr. Cray had no bad -report.* He 
entered upon a different sort of report, 
speaking rapidly, but not in the least 
agitatedly. He wanted the doctor’s 
consent to his marriage with Miss 
Caitfline Davenal. Perhaps it was 
the knowledge that they must so soon 
be interrupted by three o’clock and 
the doctor’s country patients, that 
prompted Mr. Cray to enter upon the 
subject at that not over-seasonable 
hour. There would be less time f o ’ 
the doctor’s objections, he^ay have 
deemed — not that Mr. Cray was one 
to anticipate objections to any project 
he set his fancy on, or to pay much at- 
tention to them if they came. 

Dr. Davenal stood against the wall 
near the window, looking very grave 
in his surprise and, it may be said, 
vexation. He had never dreamt of 
this. Mr. Cray had certainly been 
intimate with his family ; many an 
evening when the doctor had been out 
professionally, Mr. Cray had passed 
with them ; but he had never given a 
thought -to any thing of this sort aris- 
ing from it. His connection with Mr. 
Cray was a professional connection, 
and perhaps that fact had blinded his 
eyes and kept his thoughts from glanc- 
ing to the possibility that any thing 
different might supervene. 

“You look grave. Dr. Davenal,” 
said Mr. Cray, breaking the silence, 
and retaining, in a remarkable degree, 
his self-possession. 

“Yes,” replied the doctor, “for 
Caroline’s sake. Mark, I believe I had 
cherished more ambitious dreams for 
her.” 

“Ambitious dreams I” repeated Mr. 
Cray. “ She will, at least, occupy a 
position as good as yours, sir. ” 

“As good as mine 1” echoed the 
doctor. “ But when, Mark ? — when ?” 
he added, after a pause. 

“ In time.” 

“Ay — in time. There it is. How 
long must you wait for it ?” 

“We shall rub on until then, Dr. 
Davenal. As others do.” 

“ Mark, I do not think Caroline is 
one to rub on, as you call it, so 
smoothly as some might, unless for- 


28 


OSWALD CRAY. 


tune is smooth about her. Remember 
what your income is.” 

“It is two hundred a-year,” said 
Mark, pushing his hair from his brow, 
and speaking with as much equanimity 
as though he had said two thousand. 
“ But I thought perhaps you might be 
induced to increase it — for her sake.” 

Dr. Davenal pulled open the green 
venetian-blind and threw the window 
higher up, as if the air of the room 
were gr(jj7iDg too hot for him. It 
was the window — or rather the com- 
partment of it — nearest to the lane, 
and the doctor was fond of keeping it 
a little raised. Summer and winter 
would the passers-by see that window 
raised behind the green staves of the 
blind. 

“Were I to double your income, 
Mark, and make it four hundred 
a-year — a thing which you have no 
right to expect me to do at present, 
or to ask me to do — it would still be 
an inadequate income for Caroline 
Davenal,” resumed the doctor, closing 
the blind again, and setting his back 
against it. “ I don^t believe — it is 
my opinion, Mark, and I only give it 
you as such — that she is one to make 
the best of a small income, or to be 
happy on it.” 

Mr. Cray had caught up one of the 
doctor’s pens, and stood opposite to 
him picking the feather-end of it off 
bit by bit. His attitude was a care- 
less one, and his eyes were bent upon 
the pen, as if to pick those pieces off 
and litter the carpet were of more 
consequence than looking at Dr. Dave- 
nal. Mr. Cray was inclined to be 
easy over most things, to take life 
coolly, arid he was characteristically 
easy over this. 

“Four hundred a-year is not so 
small an income,” he observed. 

“ That depends,” said Dr. Davenal. 
“Incomes are large or small in com- 
parison ; in accordance with the re- 
quirements, the habits, the notions, if 
you will, of those who have to live 
upon them. Caroline has enjoyed 
the advantages derivable from one 
amounting to three times four.” 


“ She may come into that fortune 
yet,” said Mr. Cray. 

The first gleam of real displeasure 
shone now in the eyes of the doctor 
as he threw them searchingly on his 
partner. “Have you been counting 
upon that? Is it the inducement 
which has called forth this proposal ?” 

“ No,” burst forth Mr. Cray, feeling 
vexed in his turn, and speaking im- 
pulsively, as he flung the dilapidated 
pen back in the inkstand and drew 
nearer the doctor. “ I declare that I 
never thought of the money or the 
suit ; it did not so much as cross my 
mind* ; and were Carine never to have 
a penny piece to the end of her life, 
it would make no difference. It is her 
I meant ; not money.” 

Dr. Davenal drew in his lips. 
“ Carine !” They must have become 
tolerably intimate for him familiarly 
to call her that. Pretty Carine was 
her fond name in the household. 

“ It was Caroline herself who spoke 
of the money,” resumed Mark Cray, 
“We were consulting together as to 
how far my two hundred a-year would 
keep us, and she remembered the 
Chancery-suit. * Mark,’ she said, * that 
fortune may come to me, and then we 
should have no care.’ It was not I 
who thought of it. Dr. Davenal. And 
I am sure I don’t count upon it : 
Caroline herself would be wise not to 
do so. Chancery-suits generally ab- 
sorb the oyster and leave the shell for 
the claimants.” 

“You have spoken to Caroline, 
then ?” questioned Dr, Davenal. 

Mark pushed off his hair again. 
“ Oh dear, yes.” 

“ May I ask when ?” 

“Well — I don’t know,” answered 
Mr. Cray, after considering the point, 
“ I have been — I have been — ” 

“What ?” cried Dr. Davenal, sur- 
prised at the unusual hesitation. 
“ Speak out, Mark.” 

“ I was going to say I have been 
making love to her ever so long,” con- 
tinued Matk, with a laugh. “ In fact, 
sir, we have understood each other for 
some time past ; but as to the precise 


OSWALD CRAY. 


29 


period that I actual! j spoke out to her 
by words, I am not sure when it 
was.” 

The contrast between the two men 
was observable in the silence that 
ensued. Dr. Davenal grave, absorbed, 
full of thought and. care ; Mr. Cray 
self-satisfied, looking as if neither 
thought nor care bad ever come to 
him, or could come. He lightly 
watched the passers-by in the street, 
over the venetian-blind of the middle 
window, nodding and smiling to any 
acquaintance that happened to appear. 
Mr. Cray had made up his mind to 
marry Miss Caroline Davenal, and it 
was entirely out of his creed to sup- 
pose that any insurmountable objec- 
tion could supervene. 

Mark,” said Dr. Davenal, inter- 
rupting the gentleman as he was 
flourishing his hand to somebody, 
^^you must be aware that circum- 
stances render it imperative upon me 
to be more than commonly watchful 
over the interests of Caroline.” 

Do you think so ? But, Dr. Dav- 
enal, I would be sure to make her 
happy. I would spend my life in it ; 
none would make her as happy as I.” 

How do you know that ?” asked 
Dr. Davenal. 

A smile hovered on the young sur- 
geon^s lips. Because she cares for 
me, sir ; and for none other in the 
wide world.” 

I had thought — I had thought 
that another cared for her,” returned 
Dr. Davenal, speaking impulsively. 
^‘At least a doubt of it has sometimes 
crossed me.” 

Mark Cray opened his eyes widely 
in his astonishment. Who ?” he 
asked. 

But Dr. Davenal did not satisfy 
him : not that he had any particular 
motive for observing reticence on the 
point. “ It is of no consequence. I 
must have been mistaken,” was all he 
said. 

^^You will not forbid her to me, 
sir ?” pleaded Mr. Cray. 

A spasm of pain passed across the 
face of Dr. Davenal : the words had 
called up bitter recollections. 


'' So long as I live I shall never for- 
bid a marriage to any over whom I 
hold control,” he said, in a tone of 
subdued anguish — and Mark Cray 
knew where the sting had pointed, 
and wished in his good nature he had 
not put the question. I -will urge 
all reflection, caution, prudence in my 
power to urge ; but I will not forbid. 
Least of all have I a right to do so 
by Caroline.” 

The young man^s face lighted up. 

Then you will give her to me. Dr. 
Davenal ?” 

I give you no promise,” was the 
doctor’s answer. I must have leisure 
to reflect on this ; it has taken me en- 
tirely by surprise. And I must speak 
to Caroline. There’s plenty of tin;e. 
To marry yet would indeed be prema- 
ture. ” 

Premature ?” echoed Mr. Cray. 

‘^Premature in the extreme. A 
man who does not know how to wait 
for good things, Mark, does not de- 
serve them.” 

A lady, with a slow walk and pale 
face, turned in at the front gate. It 
was patient the first. Dr. Davenal 
made no observation ; he scarcely 
saw her, so deeply was he absorbed 
in thought. Mr. Cray, who stood 
closer to the window than a doctor 
expecting patients generally does 
stand, smiled and bowed. 

'' It is Mrs. Scott,” he observed, as 
the knocker sounded. She looks 
very ill to-day.” 

Attentive Neal was heard to come 
forth instantly from his pantry, open 
the door, and show the lady into the 
dining-room. Then he made his ap- 
pearance in his master’s room. 

Mrs. Scott, sir 1” 

Instead of the Show her in,” as 
Neal expected. Dr. Davenal merely 
nodded. Mr. Cray made a movement 
to depart, glancing, as he did so, at 
the very grave face of his senior 
partner. 

I have vexed you, sir ?” 

I feel Vexed in this first moment, 
Mark ; I can’t deny it,” was the can- 
did answer. It is not altogether 
that Caroline might have been ex- 



30 


OSWALD CRAY. 


pected to do better, it is not that I 
think her peculiarly unfitted for a 
making-shift life, it is not that with 
regard to her I feel my responsibility 
is weighty ; but it is a mixture of all 
three.” 

You consider, perhaps, I have 
done wrong to ask for her 

‘‘ I consider you have done wrong 
to ask for her so prematurely. In 
your place, I think I should have 
waited a little while, until circum- 
stances had been more propitious.” 

‘^And perhaps have lost Caroline !” 

Xay,” said the doctor, “ a girl that 
cannot wait, and be true while she 
waits, is not worth a brass button. 

He quitted the room as he spoke. 
At the risk of keeping his patients 
waiting, he must find and question 
Caroline. His mind was not at ease. 

Mr. Cray went out at the hall-door. 
Before Neal, who was on the alert, 
had shut it, a carriage drove up to the 
gate, and stopped with a clatter. A 
well-appointed, close carriage, its ser- 
vants in claret-colored livery, and its 
claret-colored panels bearing the in- 
signia of England’s baronetage — the 
bloody hand. 

The footman leaped down for his 
orders. Mr. Cray, stepping across 
the lawn, in too much haste to wind 
round it by means of the gravel-path, 
held out his hand with a smile to its 
only inmate, a little, gray, nervous- 
looking woman, in an old-fashioned 
purple silk dress. 

^'How are you to-day, Lady Os- 
wald ?” 

And Neal, with his quiet, cat-like 
steps, had followed in the wake of 
Mr. Cray, unseen by that gentleman, 
and stood behind him in his respectful 
attention — leaving three patients, who 
had entered the gate together, to show 
themselves in alone. There might be 
some message to carry in to his 
master 


CHAPTER 11. 

LADY OSWALD’S LETTER. 

The room at the back, looking into 
the garden, on the opposite side of the 
passage to Neal’s pantry and to Dr. 
Da venal’s bedchamber, was the most 
charming apartment in all the house. 
Not for its grandeur; it was very 
small, very simple indeed compared 
to the grand drawing-room, up-stairs : 
not for its orderly neatness, for it was 
usually in a litter : a fascinating, 
pleasant-looking litter; and perhaps 
that made its charm. It was called 
the garden-parlor. The great drawing- 
room was kept sacred by its presiding 
mistress, to whom you will soon have 
the honor of an introduction ; sacred 
and uncomfortably tidy. Not so much 
as a pocket-handkerchief must be laid 
for an instant on one of its handsome 
tables, its luxurious satin sofas and 
ottomans ; not a footstool must be 
drawn from its appointed place, let 
tired legs be hanging down with 
weariness ; not a hand-screen must 
be removed from the handsomely fur- 
nished mantelpiece, were lovely cheeks 
being roasted to crimson. Methodi- 
cally proper, every thing in its ap- 
pointed spot, must that room be kept : 
a book put down in the wrong place 
was treason ; a speck of dust all but 
warning to Jessy, the unhappy house- 
maid. The dining-room must be tidy, 
too : no extraneous things were al- 
lowed there, it must be kept free for 
the reception of the patients : the 

Times”, newspaper and the newest 
local journal lay daily on the large 
mahogany table, and there the litter 
ended. Perhaps, therefore, it was no 
wonder that the other room was not 
always in the order it might have 
been. 

A charming room, nevertheless, on 
a sunny day. Water-colored drawings 


OSWALD CRAY. 


31 


and pencil sketches in plain frames 
lined the delicately-papered walls, 
loose music was strewed near the 
piano and harp, books lay anywhere, 
pretty little ornamental trifles met the 
eye, and fancy-work might be seen in 
more places than one. The glass 
doors at the window, large and high, 
stood open to the few wide steps that 
led to the green lawn — a lawn par- 
ticularly grateful on a sultry summer’s 
day. 

For that lawn lay in the shade ; the 
sun in the afternoon shone full on the 
front of the house, and the lawn was 
sheltered. The scent of the roses, the 
syringa, the heliotrope, and other 
powerfully perfumed flowers filled the 
air, and butterflies and bees flitted 
from blossom to blossom. It was 
quite a contrast to the other side of 
the house, with its busy street, its hot 
pavement, its jostling traversers, and 
its garish sunshine. Here lay the cool 
shade on the mossy lawn — the quiet 
and the repose of the tinted flowers. 

Seated on the lawn, on a garden- 
bench, was a young lady, reading. A 
graceful girl of middle height, with 
large hazel eyes (quite luminous in 
their brightness), a well-formed gentle 
face, rather pale, and brown hair that 
took almost a golden tinge when the 
sun shone through it. There was no 
very great beauty to boast of in the 
face, but it was one of those that the 
eye likes to rest upon — and love. A 
far more beautiful face was that of 
another young girl, who was restlessly 
moving amidst the side clusters of 
shrubs and flowers, and plucking the 
choicest. A face whose beauty could 
not be denied, with its dark violet 
eyes, its nearly black hair, and the 
damask complexion all too bright .; — 
these strangely brilliant complexions 
do not always go with the soundest 
of constitutions. She was little, fairy- 
like, somewhat pettish and wilful in 
her movements. A stranger would 
say they were sisters, and be puzzled 
to tell which of the two were the elder, 
which the, younger. There was really 
no likeness between them, save in the 
dress — that was precisely similar; a 


thin gauzy silken material, cool but 
rich, and no doubt expensive, with a 
good deal of delicate colored trimming 
upon it, and open sleeves of white 
lace. Sisters they were not — only 
cousins. 

Suddenly there was a scream from 
the midst of the flowers, and the 
young lady on the garden-bench raised 
her eyes to speak. 

What is it, Caroline 

She came forth in her beauty, fling- 
ing down the flowers she had gathered, 
and holding out the back of her hand. 
A deep scratch lay right across it. 

Just look ! I am always, tearing 
myself with those wild-rose brambles !” 

Poor hand ! Sit down, Carrie ; 
it is too hot for any thing else to-day. 
What do you want with the flowers, 
that you need trouble yourself to get 
them 

I don’t know what I want with 
them. Nothing. Picking them helped 
to pass away the time.” 

Why are you so restless this after- 
noon ?” 

Am I restless ? One can’t be 
always as quiet as you — read, read, 
read forever.” 

An amused smile parted the reader’s 
lips, bringing to view the pretty teeth, 
so white and regular. ** I will retort 
in nearly your own words, Carrie — 
am I quiet ? I think not. ” 

Yes, you are ; except when the 
boys are at home. You are noisy 
enough then. I shall go and eat some 
fruit.” 

Lend me your pencil first, Caro- 
line. ” 

Miss Caroline Davenal put her hand 
into her pocket and could not find her 
pencil. “ I must have left it some- 
where in-doors,” she said. You’ll 
see it if you look. What do you want 
with it ?” 

To mark some of the passages 
here. It is a delightful book !” 

What will Mr. Oswald Cray say 
to your marking them ?” 

*'Mr. Oswald Cray asked me to 
mark them. He has not read it him- 
self yet ; he lent it me first.” 

Caroline Davenal leaned her lovely 


OSWALD CRAY. 


32 

face over her cousin’s shoulder, glanc- 
ing at the pages of the book. 

Oh dear I It is religious, is it 
not 

No. There happens to be a little 
religion, as you calldt, just here.” 

‘^And is it that you are going to 
mark ? Mr. Oswald Cray won’t thank 
you.” 

‘*No. I should not be likely to 
mark any thing of that sort for Mr. 
Oswald Cray. He would deem me a 
self-sufficient girl I You are saying it 
for joke, Caroline ?” 

Caroline Davenal laughed as she 
went on down the garden. In her 
gay light-heartedness, in her happy 
youth, in her freedom from care, bask- 
ing always as she had done in the 
sunshine of prosperity, religion wore 
to her as yet somewhat of a gloomy 
aspect. 

She w^ent joyously down the garden, 
singing a snatch of a song, putting her 
handkerchief over her head to guard 
it from the sun. The upper half of the 
long piece of ground was all pleasure 
and flowers ; the lower half all useful- 
ness and fruit-trees. Her cousin, book 
in hand, went up the steps and in at 
the glass doors to find a pencil. She 
was bending over the centre table, 
searching for one, when Dr. Davenal 
entered. 

Is Caroline here ?” 

** She is in the garden, papa.” 

Dr. Davenal advanced to the win- 
dow, and stood at it, ostensibly look- 
ing for Caroline. He could not see 
her ; the fruit-trees in the distance had 
effectually hidden her, and the doctor 
appeared lost in thought. Presently 
he spoke, without looking round : 

“ Sara.” 

His daughter had found the pencil. 
She laid it down with the book, and 
approached him, waiting until he 
should speak. He was some little 
time ere he did, and then he did not 
seem to know how to frame his ques- 
tion. 

** Sara, did you know that — that — 
in short, have you ever observed that 
an attachment was arising between 
Mr. Cray and Caroline ?” 


It was Sara’s turn to be silent. The 
question was one, put from a father 
to a daughter, that brought up the 
blushes on her cheeks in her maiden 
modesty. 

<< N — 0 ,” she replied, at length. But 
the no, in its hesitation, sounded 
almost as much like yes. 

“ My dear, I did not ask you to 
deceive me,” was the grave answer ; 
** I ask for the truth.” 

^*0h, papa, you know — you know I 
would not deceive you,” she replied, 
quite in distress. And Dr. DaVenal, 
pained by the tone, drew her to him 
and kissed her cheek. He knew how 
good, how loving, how dutiful was 
this daughter of his. 

The real truth is this, papa. Very 
recently, only since a day or two, a 
faint suspicion has arisen in my mind 
that it might be so. Caroline has not 
spoken, and I have had nothing to 
guide me to it, except the fact that 
Mr. Cray is so much here. Indeed, I 
do not know whether it is so or not.” 

*‘I believe I have been a little 
blind,” observed Dr. Davenal, speak- 
ing quite as much to himself as to his 
daughter. The fact is, Sara, I had 
a notion in my head that some one 
else had taken a fancy to Caroline ; 
and I suppose I could see nothing 
beyond it. I speak of Mr. Oswald 
Cray. ” 

It was well that Dr. Davenal’s eyes 
were fixed on the garden, or he might 
have wmndered at the startled change 
in his daughter’s face. It had turned 
to glowing crimson. She moved to 
the table, and stood there with her 
back to the light. 

I suppose I was mistaken ; that 
there was nothing in it, Sara ?” 

Nothing, papa, I think ; nothing 
whatever,” came the low-toned answer. 

“ But Mr. Oswald Cray does come 
here a great deal when he is at Hall- 
ingham ?” pursued the doctor, as if 
willing to debate the question. 

The crimson grew deeper. Dr. 
Davenal did not seem to observe that 
there was no answer. 

Well, and no wonder ; no wonder,” 
he more impulsively resumed. “ Who’d 


OSWALD CRAY. 


33 


wisii him to spend his lonely evenings 
at the Apjile Tree ? Am I getting 
selfish ? A passing sojourner in the 
town, an acquaintance cannot seek the 
society of my house for an occasional 
evening hour, but 1 must jump to the 
conclusion that he has an interested, 
covert motive in it ! Sara, I say, 
am I growing selfish — or into my 
dotage 

Oh, papa ! it might be natural you 
should think so.” 

Scarcely. How the idea came to 
arise, I do not understand. Heaven 
knows I should be the last man in the 
world to scheme and plan out mar- 
riages — for Caroline or for anybody 
else. Such matters are best left to 
come about of themselves. But, Sara, 
I wish one thing — that it had been 
Mr. Oswald Cray, instead of Mark.” 

** Do 3 ^ou, papa ?” with the blush- 
ing face still turned from him. 

''Ay, I do. I would have trusted 
her to Oswald. How could she 
choose the other in preference to 
him ?” 

Sara lifted her face. Eager words 
were on her lips — to the etfect that 
perhaps Mr. Oswald Cray might not 
have chosen Ca.roline. But they died 
away unspoken. 

" I wish you would go and tell her 
I want her here, Sara.” 

Sara slipped by the doctor, passed 
over the cool* lawn to the distant 
sunny paths, and met her cousin. 

" Papa wants you, Carine.” 

Caroline visibly recoiled in her self- 
conscious timidity. 

" What about ?” she whispered. 
" Did he say what about ?” 

'‘ I think,” said Sara, slowly, scarcely 
knowing whether she was doing right 
to speak or not, " that it is something 
about Mr. Cray.” 

For a moment Caroline made no 
rejoinder. She walked on and had 
nearly gained the lawn, when she 
turned her head again. Sara had 
lingered behind. 

" Sara ! Sara ! Did he seem an- 
gry ?” she whispered. 

" Not exactly angry. Vexed, I 
thought.” 

2 


Dr. Davenal stood at the glass-doors 
still. He put out his hand as she ap- 
proached him. 

" Did you want me, Uncle Rich- 
ard ?” 

"Mr. Cray has been making an ap- 
plication to me concerning you. Caro- 
line, were you cognizant of it ?” 

" Now, Uncle Richard ! If you are 
going to be cross, I — I shall be so un- 
happy.” 

"When did you ever know me 
cross ?” he gravely rejoined ; and 
Caroline Davenal burst into tears. 

"Carrie, my dear, we must put 
away this childishness. You are but 
affecting it, and this is a serious mo- 
ment. I must talk to you very ear- 
nestly. Come in, Sara. It is cooler 
in-doors than out.” 

Sara, who in her delicacy of feeling 
would have remained outside, went 
within the room and sat down to the 
table with her book. Caroline had 
dried her passing tears, and was steal- 
ing a glance at Dr. Davenal. 

" You are angry, Uncle Richard.” 

"If I am, Caroline, it is for your 
sake ; a loving anger. My chief emo- 
tion, I believe, is surprise. I never 
gave a thought to this ; not a suspi- 
cion of it crossed me.” 

" I fancied you must have guessed 
it,” was the murmured answer. 

" Guessed that ! No, child I But 
the blindness was my own, I believe. 
When we ourselves place one view 
deliberately before us, it tends to shut 
out others. I had got it into my head, 
Carrie, that it was to your score we 
were indebted for the frequent visits 
of Mr. Oswald Cray.” 

Caroline lifted her face, and Dr. 
Davenal observed how genuine was 
the surprise depicted on it. " Uncle 
Richard I” 

"I see. I see now, child, that the 
idea was void of foundation. But, 
Caroline,” he gravely added, " I would 
rather that it had been Oswald than 
Mark. All the world must respect 
Oswald Cray.” 

"I should think it was void of 
foundation I” indignantly returned 
Caroline, resenting the disparagement 


34 


OSWALD CRAY. 


cast on Mark. ''Why, Uncle Rich- 
ard, Oswald Cray likes Sara a thou- 
sand times better than he likes me ! 
But not with that sort of liking,’’ she 
hastened to add, lest a construction 
should be put upon the words which 
most certainly she neve^ meant to put. 

General liking, I mean. Oswald 
Cray’s heart is buried in his ambition, 
in his busy life : he gives little thought 
to aught else. Uncle Richard, I would 
not marry Oswald Cray if he were 
worth his weight in gold. He would 
find fault with me all day long.” 

Well, well ; let us drop Oswald 
Cray, and return to the point, Caro- 
line. If—” 

Lady Oswald, sir.” 

The interruption came from Neal. 
They had not heard him open the 
door, and the announcement was the 
first intimation of his presence. Of 
course all private conversation was at 
an end, and the doctor half groaned 
as he turned to Lady Oswald. She 
came in, her warm cashmere scarf 
drawn round her, and her purple gown 
held up gracefully on the right side, 
after the style of walking in the fash- 
ionable world in the days when Lady 
Oswald was young. 

Lady Oswald was one of those im- 
aginary invalids who give more trou- 
ble to their medical attendants than a 
whole score of patients with real mal- 
adies. Fussy and fidgety, she ex- 
acted constant attendance from Dr. 
Davenal. She paid him well ; but 
she worried him nearly out of his life. 
On his leisure days when he could 
really afford the visit to her, and the 
quarter-of-an-hour’s chat, spent in con- 
doling with her upon her array of ail- 
ments and in giving her the gossip of 
Hallingham, he spared the time with 
^ a good grace ; but in a season of press- 
ure, he did chafe at having to pay this 
daily visit, when dying men were 
waiting for him. He had been with 
her that morning between ten and 
eleven. Neal had said she called 
while he was out ; and now here she 
was again I Once or twice latterly 
he had sent Mr. Cray in his stead, and 
she had not seemed to object to it. 


Only two minutes’ conversation 
with you, doctor,” she said, in a voice 
naturally feeble. “You must spare 
it me, though it is Tuesday afternoon, 
and I see your dining- room’s getting 
full. Neal said you were here, sg I 
came in straight, not to be confounded 
with the patients. Only look at this 
letter which was delivered to me this 
morning, and see what it must have 
been to my nerves. Parkins has been 
giving me red lavender ever since.” 

^‘But you know. Lady Oswald, I 
object to your taking red lavender.” 

‘‘What am I to do when a shock 
like that comes to me ? Do read it, 
doctor.” 

Dr. Davenal, feeling that he had no 
time for letters or nerves just then, 
was yet compelled in good manners 
to accede. He opened the note, which 
was a very short one, and ran his 
eyes over the contents once, and then 
again : the first time he did not quite 
master them. 

It was written to Lady Oswald by 
her landlord, a gentleman of the name 
of Low. It appeared that Mr. Low 
had some little time back received an 
intimation from the railway company 
that they should require to take a 
small portion of the grounds attached 
to the residence occupied by Lady 
Oswald, for the purpose of erecting 
certain sheds necessary at that bend 
of the line. This note was to inform 
her that he had given his consent, and 
it ended with a polite hope and belief 
that neither the sheds nor the process 
of their erection would prove any an- 
noyance to her. 

Dr. Davenal folded the letter when 
read. Lady Oswald looked at him. 
“ What would you advise me to do 
she asked, in a fretful tone. 

“ Indeed, Lady Oswald, I do not 
see what you can do,” he thoughtfully 
answered, “except submit to it.” 

“ Submit to it 1 submit to their 
erecting railway sheds in my very 
garden !” she ejaculated in astonish- 
ment. 

“From the very first hour that I 
knew they were carrying that new 
line of rail close to your grounds, I 


OSWALD CRAY. 


35 


felt sure it would prove an annoyance 
to you in- some shape or other,” ob- 
served Dr. Davenal, speaking more to 
himself than to Lady Oswald. '' It 
is a great pity, but we all have to sub- 
mit occasionally to these untoward 
things, Lady Oswald, as we go through 
life.” 

shall not submit to this,” she 
resolutely returned. They have no 
more right to erect sheds on my 
grounds, than they have to erect them 
upon me. I shall forbid it.” 

But the power to do so does not 
lie with you,” objected Dr. Davenal. 

You are but a tenant on lease. In 
point of fact, I do not suppose such 
power lies with any one, not even 
with Low himself. The railway com- 
panies seem to do pretty much as they 
please in the kingdom. Mr. Low will 
be sure to get well paid, and his con- 
sent, according to the tenor of this 
note, is already given.” 

Lady Oswald stroked her gray hair 
nervously on her brow. Dr. Dave- 
nal, I don’t believe that the law has 
power so to annoy innocent people 
and drive them from their homes. Do 
you know how long I have lived in 
that house ?” 

A great many years now. Ever 
since the death of Sir John.” 

I have lived in it fourteen years, 
and I will not be driven forth at their 
pleasure. I expected to die in it, and 
I will die in it. If they attempt to 
touch my grounds, I shall have them 
warned off as trespassers, and I will 
keep a couple of policemen on the 
watch day and night.” 

Dr. Davenal did not then dispute 
the policy of the avowed plan with 
her, or point out its futility. In her 
present mood he knew it would be 
useless, even if he had the time to 
attempt it. 

Because I am a widow woman 
they think they can put upon me with 
impunity,” she resumed ; but they 
will find their mistake. I have tele- 
graphed for Mr. Oswald Cray, and 
expect him down by night time.” 

You have telegraphed for him ?” 
criecjjjjDr. Davenal. 


Of course I have. Who else is 
there to take my part, doctor, save 
him or you ? That letter was deliv- 
ered just after you left me this morn- 
ing, and I sent to the telegraph at 
once. Oswald can fight them ; he 
knows all about railways; they will 
be clever to overreach 

Dr. Davenal opened his mouth to 
speak, but suppressed the impulsive 
words upon his tongue. To what end 
recall to Lady Oswald’s attention the 
fact that Mr. Oswald Cray, as one of 
the engineers to the line, must neces- 
sarily be against her, if she had not 
the sense to remember it ? He said 
a few words to the effect that he must 
go to his patients, gave Lady Oswald 
a half promise to see her that night, 
and left her to be entertained by his 
daughter. 

> My dear, why need Miss Carine 
have run away from me the m^ent 
I came in ?” / : 

Sara smiled. 

^'Not from you. Lady Oswald; I 
think she wanted to run from us all. 
And perhaps she thought your visit 
was only to papa.” 

'' How is Miss Davenal ?” 

Quite well. Will you see her? 
She is in the drawing-room.” 

Lady Oswald hesitated. 

^'My dear, of course I should be 
glad to see her ; I wish to pay her 
every respect ; but, you know, it is so 
great a trial to me, with my little 
weak voice. However, I will go 
up, as I am here. Is her deafness 
better ?” 

Not at all,” was Sara’s answer. 

I don’t suppose it ever will be bet- 
ter. It gets worse, we think, as she 
grows old.” 

''Grows what?” cried Lady Os- 
wald. 

Sara had quick perceptions, and she 
felt that the word old, as applied to 
her aunt, had offended Lady Oswald’s 
ear. How changed do our ideas of 
age become, as our own years change ! 
To Sara Davenal, with her twenty 
years, her aunt, verging on fifty, was 
old ; to Lady Oswald, who would 
count seventy-one on her next birth- 


36 


OSWALD CRAY. 


day, Miss Davenal seemed but as a 
youngish woman ! 

Lady Oswald stepped slowly up 
the wide staircase, one foot at a time. 
Sara followed her, and threw open 
the door of the handsome drawing- 
room : a large, square room, beautiful 
as a show-place ; and to keep it beau- 
tiful was the hobby of Miss Bettina 
Davenal. 


CHAPTER HI. 

MISS BETTINA DAVENAL. 

Miss Davenal sat in her usual 
seat near the window, her straight 
figure bolt upright, her knitting needles 
plying fast their work, the small inlaid 
table at her right hand holding the 
open pearl basket of wool. How 
many stockings, socks, sleeves, chest- 
protectors, and other useful articles 
were knitted by Miss Davenal in the 
course of the year, the poor alone 
could tell — for they were the recipi- 
ents. Hallingham surmised that she 
must spend half her income upon 
wool. There’s no doubt she was a 
charitable, well-meaning woman at 
heart, but she did not always show it 
in her manner. 

A beautiful woman in her day must 
have been Bettina Davenal, with her 
pure complexion and her classical 
features. But the gray eyes had a 
cold, hard look in them now ; and 
the nose, across the high bridge of 
which the delicate skin was drawn so 
tightly, was almost painfully thin. The 
name, Bettina, had been bestowed on 
her at the request of a godmother, a 
lady of Italian origin : not an ugly 
name, but somewhat long for the 
every-day use of English tongues, and 
those familiar with her occasionally 
thortened it into '' Miss Bett,” a lib- 
erty that was resented by Miss Dave- 
nal. She labored under that trouble- 
some defect, intense deafness, and also 
under the no less troublesome convic- 
tion (not unfrcquently accompanying 
it) that she was not deaf at all. Her 


hair, of a pale flaxen, soft and abun- 
dant still, was worn in smooth braids, 
and was surmounted by a rich lace 
head-dress, very high. 

She need not have added to her 
height : she was tall enough without 
it ; as was seen when she rose to 
receive Lady Oswald. A straight- 
down, thin, upright figure, without 
crinolines or cordings, and her gray 
damask dress fell in wrapt fold- 
around her as she held forth her mit- 
tened hand. 

I hope I see you better. Lady 
Oswald.” 

The tone was unnaturally high : 
you may have noticed that it is so 
sometimes in deaf people. Lady 
Oswald, with her weak nerves, would 
have put her hands to her ears had 
she done as she liked. 

“I am not well to-day. I am 
worse than usual. I have had a most 
unpleasant shock, Miss Davenal ; an 
upset.” 

A what ?” cried Miss Davenal, 
putting her hand to her ear. 

An upset.” 

“ Bless my heart I” cried Miss Dav- 
■enal ; “ did your carriage run away ?” 

Tell her, Sara,” groaned Lady 
Oswald. '‘I shall be hoarse for two 
days if I call out like this.” 

“ Lady Oswmld has had some un- 
pleasant news, aunt. She has re- 
ceived notice that they are going to 
run the railway through her grounds.” 

Miss Davenal looked terrified. 
“ Received notice that they are going 
to run a railway through her ! What 
do you mean ?” 

“ Not through her,” said Sara, put- 
ting her lips close to the deaf ears. 

Through her grounds.” 

“ But I’d not let them,” cried Miss 
Davenal, hearing now. I’d not let 
them. Lady Oswald.” 

** I won’t,” screamed Lady Oswald 
at the top of her voice. I have sent 
for Mr. Oswald Cray.” 

Miss Davenal was dubious. What 
good will that do ? Is it to pelt upon 
them ? I hate those wicked rail- 
ways. ” 

Is what to pelt upon them 


OSWALD CRAY. 


37 


“ The clay. Didn’t you say you 
had sent for some clay 

Oh dear ! Sara, do make her un- 
derstand.” 

Poor Sara had to do her best. 
‘‘Not c.lay, Aunt Bettina ; Mr. Oswald 
Cray.” 

Aunt Bettina nodded her stately 
head. “ I like Mr. Oswald Cray. 
He is a favorite of mine, Lady Os- 
wald.” 

“As he is of everybody’s, Miss 
Davenal,” returned Lady Oswald. 
“ I’d have remembered him in my 
will, but for offending the Oswald 
family. They are dreadfully preju- 
diced.” 

I “ Pinched I” echoed Miss Davenal. 
“ Where’s he pinched ?” 

“ Prejudiced, Aunt Bettina. Lady 
Oswald says the Oswald family are 
prejudiced.” 

“ You need not roar out in that 
way, Sara ; I can hear, I hope. I 
am not so deaf as all that comes to. 
What’s he prejudiced at ? — the rail- 
way ? He ought not to be ; he’ is one 
of its engineers !” 

“ Not Mr. Oswald Cray, aunt. 
The Oswald family. They are pre- 
judiced against him.” 

“ If you speak to me again in that 
manner, Sara, I shall complain to 
your papa. One would think you 
were calling out to somebody at the 
top of the chimney. As if I and 
Lady Oswald did not know that the 
Oswald family are prejudiced against 
Oswald Cray ? We don’t want you 
to tell it us from a speaking trumpet ; 
we knew it before you were born. I 
don’t think he cares for their preju- 
dices, Lady Oswald,” Miss Davenal 
added, turning to her. 

“ He would be very foolish if he 
did. I don’t. They are prejudiced, 
you know, against me. Dear me, 
Sara,” broke off Lady Oswald as a 
thought struck her, “ I might have 
given your aunt the note to read, and 
saved all this explanation. She can 
read it now.” 

But the banding the note to this 
hopelessly deaf lady did not save 
troirt)le ; on the contrary, it entailed 


more. Before she would open it she 
demanded an explanation in full of 
what it was, and Lady Oswald and 
Sara afforded it to the best of their 
abilities. This over, she opened it 
and read it : and grew as indigntvQi 
over its contents as Lady Oswald had 
been when it first reached her. 

“ I don’t wonder at its making you 
ill. Lady Oswald. Were they to 
send such a note as this to me, in 
regard to those houses of mine at the 
other end of the town, they should 
smart for it. I think the world must 
be coming to an end, with all these 
rails, and stations, and sheds I” 

“ 111 1” repeated Lady Oswald, who 
liked nothing half so well as to speak 
of her own ailments, “ it has made me 
ill. I was getting better, as Dr. 
Davenal can tell you, but this will 
throw me back for weeks. My maid 
has been giving me red lavender ever 
since.” 

Miss Davenal looked at her with a 
puzzled stare. “ That is poison, is it 
not ?” 

“ What is poison ?” 

“Red lead.” 

“ I said red lavender,” cried Lady 
Oswald. “It is very good for the 
spirits : a few drops taken on a lump 
of sugar. Red lav-en-der.” 

Miss Davenal resolutely shook her 
l^ad. “Nasty, stuff!” she cried, 
^led lavender never did anybody 
good yet. Lady Oswald. Leave it 
off; leave it off.” 

“ I don’t touch it once in a month 
in an ordinary way,” screamed Lady 
Oswald. “ Only when any thing be- 
yond common arises to flurry me.” 

Miss Bettina stared at her. “ What 
common is flooded ? It is dry 
weather.” 

Lady Oswald cast a helpless look 
at Sara. 

“ Flurried, Aunt Bettina,” said the 
young lady. “ Lady Oswald said 
when she was flurried.” 

Miss Bettina was not in the least 
grateful for the assistance. She 
pushed away her niece with her 
elbow. It was in fact next to high- 
treason for Sara to attempt to assist 


38 


0 S W A I. D C R A A". 


Miss Davetial’s deafness. I should 
not allow thiners to Hurry me, Lady Os- 
wald. I never was flurried in my life.” 

“Temperaments are constituted 
differently,” returned Lady Oswald. 

“Temper I” cried Miss Davenal, as 
anofrily as politeness would allow her, 
“ what has temper to do with it ? 
Who accuses me of temper?” 

“ Tem-per-a-ment,” corrected Lady 
Oswald, cracking her voice. “ Sara, 
I imist go.” 

She rose quickly ; she could not 
stand the interview any longer ; but 
in spite of the misapprehensions they 
took leave of. each other cordially. 
The same scene occurred every time 
they met : as it did whenever conver- 
sation was attempted with Miss Dav- 
enal. It cannot be denied that she 
heard better at times ,than at others, 
occasionafly tolerably well : and hence 
perhaps the source, or partially so, 
of her own belief that her deafness 
was but of a slight nature. When 
alone with the familiar family ^voices 
and in quiet times, she could hear ; 
but in moments of surprise or excite- 
ment, in paying or receiving visits, 
the ears were nearly hopeless. 

Neal attended Lady Oswald to her 
carriage, which was waiting there at- 
the gate with its powdered coachman 
and footman, to the gratification of 
the juvenile street Arabs of Ilalliiig- 
hara. lie was ever the same assiou- 

ous, superior servant, quite dignified 
in his respectability. Lady Oswald 
believed him perfection — that there 
was not another such servant in the 
world. 

“ A^our mistress grows more dis- 
tressingly deaf than ever, Neal,” she 
remarked as he put her dress straight 
in the carriage, her own footman re- 
signing the office to him with almost 
the same submission that he might- 
have resigned it to Mr. Cray, had the 
young surgeon been at hand to assist 
her in, as he had been to assist her 

out. 

“ She does, my lady. It is a great 
affliction, iloine,” loftily added Neal 
to the servants : and he bowed low as 
the carriage drove away. 


The house of Lady Oswald was an 
old-fashioned red-brick mansion of 
moderate size, two stories in height 
only, and with gable ends. It was 
exceedingly comfortable inside, and 
was surrounded by rather extensive 
grounds. At the opposite end of the 
town to the station, it might have 
been thought that that vulgar inno- 
vation, the railroad, so especially ob- 
noxious to Lady Oswald, would at 
least have spared it offensive contact; 
but that was not to be. There was 
no accounting for the curves and 
tracks taken by those lines of the 
junction, and one of them had gone 
off at a tangent to skirt the very 
boundary of her land. , 

Seated in the front drawing-room, 
the one chiefly used by Lady Oswald, 
was a woman of some forty years, at- 
tired in a neat green-colored gown, 
and cap with white ribbons. This 
was Parkins, Lady Oswald’s maid, 
recently promoted to be somewhat of 
a companion, for Lady Oswald began 
to dislike being much alone. A well- 
meaning faithful woman, with weak 
eyes and weak will, and given to 
tears on slight occasions. Parkins 
had also been lately made house- 
keeper as well as companion, and the 
weekly accounts connected" with that 
department threatened to be the bane 
of Parkins’s life. Add them up, she 
could not ; niake them come right, 
she could not: and she could get 
neither mercy nor assistance from 
Lady Oswald, who had always been 
her own account-keeper, and never 
found any trouble in it. Two trades- 
men’s books were before Parkins now, 
and she was bending over them in 
despair. 

“ I can’t as much as read the 
figures,” she groaned : “how, then, am 
•1 to add ’em up ? Last week there 
was an overcharge of ten shillings in 
this very butcher’s book, and my lady 
found it out, and hasn’t done talking 
to me for it yet. It isnH my fault : 
all folks are not born with a head for 
figuril.” 

Had she not been so absorbed by 
the book and its complicationajf she 


OSWALD CRAY. 


might have seen the approach of a 
visitor. A tall and very gentlemanlj 
man of some eight-and-twenty years, 
with a countenance that would have 
been remarkably frank and pleasing 
but for the expression of pride per- 
vading it: nay, that was frank and 
pleasing in spite of the pride. He 
could not help the pride ; it was in- 
nate, born with him ; he did not make 
his own face, and the lines of pride 
were there. His features were pale, 
his hair was dark ; his eyes were 
dark blue, and lay rather deep in his 
head; good and honest eyes they 
were, searching and truthful ; and 
when he smiled, as he was smiling 
now, it made full amends for deficien- 
cies, obliterating every trace of pride, 
and imparting a singular charm to the 
face. 

His approach had been discerned 
by one of the maid-servants, and she 
had come to the hall door and was 
holding it open. It was at her he had 
smiled, for in manner he was exceed- 
ingly affable. Perhaps the very con- 
sciousness of the pride that clung to 
him, and which was his besetting sin, 
made him resolve that in manner at 
least he should not offend. 

How are you, Susan ? Is Lady 
Oswald within 

Ho, sir, my lady is out,” was the 
girPs reply, as she dropped a courtesey. 
''Parkins is in the drawing-room, sir, 
I think : I dare say she can tell 
whether my lady will be long.” 

He laid on the hall-table a small 
roll of paper or parchment that he 
carried, threw off a dusty light over- 
coat, and took up the roll again. 
Susan opened the drawing-room door. 

Mr. Oswald Cray.” 

Parkins^ gave a scream. Parkins 
was somewhat addicted to give 
screams when startled or surprised. 
Starting up from her chair and her 
perplexing books, she stood staring 
at him, as if unable to take in the fact 
of his presence. Parkins believed in 
marvels, and thought one had occurred 
then. 

" Oh, sir I how did you come ? 


39 

You must have travelled surely on the 
telegraph wires ?” 

"Not I,” answered Mr. Oswald 
Cray, smiling -at her astonishment, 
but not understanding its cause. " I 
left London by rail this morning, 
Parkins.” 

"A telegraph message went up for 
you an hour or two ago, sir,” con- 
tinued Parkins. " My lady has had 
bad news, sir, and she sent for you.” 

" I had no message. I must have 
left London previously. What bad 
news has- she had?” 

" It’s them railway people, sir,” ex- 
plained Parkins. '‘They have been 
writing a letter to my lady — least- 
ways the landlord has — saying that 
they are going to take these grounds 
and build upon them. I haven’t seen 
her so upset for a long while, sir. 
When she got a bit bettej^ from the 
shock and had sent to the telegraph, 
she ordered the carriage and set off to 
tell Dr. Davenal.” 

" Do you expect her to be long ?” 
he asked, thinking that, if so, he might 
go about some business he had to do, 
and come back again. 

" J expect her every minute, sir ; 
she has been gone a great deal longer 
than I thought she’d be away.” 

He walked to the window, unrolled 
the parchment and began to look at 
it. It seemed a sort of map, drawn 
with ink. Parkins — who, whatever 
might be the companionship she was 
admitted to by her mistress, knew her 
place better than to remain in the 
presence of Mr. Oswald Cray — gath- 
ered up her account book and her pen 
and ink, and prepared to quit the 
room. 

"Shall I order you' any refresh- 
ment, sir?” she stopped to ask. 

"Not any, thank you.” 

She closed the door, leaving him deep 
in his parchment. Another minute, 
and the carriage was seen bowling 
quickly up. He went out to meet it : 
and Lady Oswald gave a scream as 
Parkins had done, and wanted to 
know how he had got there. 

" I came down on my own account, 


40 


OSWALD CRAY. 


Lady Oswald,” he said, as he gave 
lier his arm to lead her in. ^‘My 
visit is a purposed one to you.” 

“ Pm sure you are* very good, Os- 
wald ! It is not often that you honor 
me with a visit. When you are stay- 
ing in the neighborhood for days and 
days, a simple call of ceremony is 
about all I get.” 

Ilis lips parted with that peculiar 
smile which made his face at these 
moments so attractive. “When I am 
ill the neighborhood, Lady Oswald, 
business nearly overwhelms me. I 
have not much time to call my own.” 

Lady Oswald untied her bonnet, 
and threw herself into a chair: the 
drive to Dr. DavenaPs and back 
simply had tired her. Parkins came 
into the room to take her things, but 
she waved her hand sharply, impa- 
tient at the interruption. “ Presently, 
presently,” — and Parkins left them 
alone again. 

“ Oswald, do you know what a 
cruel letter I have had this morning ? 
They want to bring that wretched 
railway through my grounds.” 

Not the railway,” he said, correct- 
j*^ing her. “They are proposing to 
build some sheds upon the boundaries 
of them.” 

“ You know about it, then ?” 

“Yes; I came down to acquaint 
you, and I am sorry you should have 
heard of it from any one else first. I 
could have spared you one-half the 
alarm and annoyance it seems to have 
caused. Look here. This is the 
plan.” 

lie spread the paper out before her. 
lie pointed out the very small portion 
of the grounds, and in the remotes^ 
part of them, not in sight of the house, 
or the parts ever walked in by herself, 
that was proposed to be taken : he 
assured her that the projected sheds 
were but small sheds, fbr barrows, 
trucks, and such things to stand un- 
der; that they would, in point of fact, 
be no annoyance to her, that she never 
need see or hear them. All in vain. 
Lady Oswald had set her mind bit- 
terly against the innovation ; she could 
neither be persuaded nor soothed, and 


she felt vexed with Mr. Oswald Cray 
that he should attempt it. 

“It is very well for you to praise 
it,” she resentfully said. “ Your in- 
terest lies in the line, not in me. 
Perhaps they have bribed you to say 
all this.” 

For a single moment his face grew 
dark, and its haughty pride shone out 
quite repellantly ; the next he was 
smiling his sweet smile. None knew 
better than Oswald Cray how rebel- 
liously false the tongue is apt to be in 
moments of irritation. 

“ Dear Lady Oswald, you know , 
that it is foreign to my nature to cause 
needless pain. When this news reached 
my ears a week ago — for the plan did 
not originate with me — I bestirred 
myself to see wdietber it might not be 
relinquished ; whether, in short, the 
sheds could not be erected on some 
other portion of the line. But I find 
that there is no other portion available 
so close to the station.” 

“ There’s that piece of waste ground 
midway between this and the station,” 
she ans\vered. “ Why can they not 
take that .?” 

“Another station is to be made 
there. One for goods.” 

“ Another station 1 Do they think 
to bring all the world to Hallingham ?” 

“ They are bringing a great many 
lines of rails to it.” 

“ But they need not disturb my pos- 
sessions to make room for them I” 
she quickly retorted. “ Surely your 
interest might get this spared to me I” 

In vain Mr. Oswald Cray strove to 
convince her that on this point he had 
no influence whatever. Nay, he con- 
fessed to her, in his candid truth, that, 
as one of the engineers to the line, he 
could not but acquiesce in the expe- 
diency of that part being used for the 
sheds, since there was no other spot 
so available. 

“ I drew this plan out myself,” he 
said, “partly from our charts of the 
line, partly from my personal recollec- 
tion of your grounds. I wished to 
demof»“Btrate to you how very small a 
portion of them is in fact required. 
Will you put on your bonnet again, 


OSWALD CRAY. 


41 


Lady Oswald, and walk with me to 
the spot ? I will show you thegsxact 
measure they intend to take.’’ 

'‘No, I won’t,” said Lady Oswald, 
angrily. “ And you ought not to turn 
against me, Oswald. It is the prin- 
ciple of the thing I go upon ; the re- 
sistance that, in my opinion, should be 
universally made to these intrusive 
railways, which are cutting up the 
country and ruining it. If they wanted 
to take but one foot of my ground, if 
they only wanted that dry ditch that 
skirts it, they should never have it })y 
my consent, and I will hold out against 
it to the last. Now you know.” 

She sat nervously unpinning her 
cashmere scarf, her hands tremblifig 
so that she could scarcely hold the 
gold pins as she took them out. Os- 
wald Cray slowly rolled up the parch- 
ment. He had come down from town 
at a very busy moment, when he could 
ill spare the time, with the sole hope 
of smoothing the news to her, of put- 
ting her in good humor with what 
must inevitably be. He had received 
many little kindnesses from her in his 
life, especially in his boyhood ; and 
he was one to treasure up the re- 
membrance of kindness shown, and 
repay it if he could. 

It may seem a very trifling thing, 
this project of erecting a few low 
trumpery sheds ; and so may Lady 
Oswald’s inveterate objection to it. 
But it is on trifles that the great events 
of life turn ; and but for this project 
of the sheds, this not-to-be-conquered 
refusal, the greater portion of this 
story need never have been written. 

4 — - 

CHAPTER lY. 

EETROSPECT. 

Of some note in the county, though 
exceedingly poor for their rank, were 
the Oswalds of Thorndyke. ^horn- 
dyke, their country seat, was situated 
about five miles from Hallingham, 
and had been generally made the con- 


stant residence of the reigning baro- 
net. It was a fine old place ; the 
dyke surrounding it, or dike, as you 
may like to spell it, from which the 
place no doubt had partially taken its 
name, was of remarkable width. It 
was filled up in the time of Lady Os- 
wald’s husband, the third baronet of 
his name ; and fine pleasure-grounds 
might be seen now, where unwhole- 
some water had once stagnated. Pos- 
sibly that water had been the remote 
and unsuspected cause of the dying 
off of so many of the house’s children 
— as they had died, in the old days. 
The second baronet. Sir Oswald 
Oswald, lost five children in succes- 
sion. Two daughters and a son alone 
lived to grow up : and perhaps it had 
been as well for the peace of Sir Os- 
wald and his wife had those three 
likewise died in infancy. The pain 
brought to their parents by them might 
have been less ; for pain they all 
brought in one shape or other. They 
were self-willed, disobedient; prefer- 
ring their own ways. The son wished 
to go into the army. His father had 
the greatest possible aversion to it ; 
but he persisted, and went, in spite 
of remonstrance. The younger daugh- 
ter, Frances, married an old man for 
his rank. Sir Oswald objected to it ; 
the man’s character was of startling 
notoriety ; but Frances took her own 
will and married him. A few short 
months only, and she was back again 
at Thorndyke, driven to take refuge 
from her husband in her father’s house. 
The elder daughter, Mary, married 
Mr. Cray, a gentleman of no account, 
in comparison with the Oswalds of 
Thorndyke. • To tljisthe most stren- 
uous objection of alT^^te made by Sir 
Oswald and hislady — imtheir haughty 
‘pride they looked down with utter 
contempt upon MrSCroy. Miss Os- 
wald disputed^the grounds of their ob- 
jection, urging that Mr. Cray, though 
of no particular note, was at least of 
gentle blood and breeding, and though 
his means might be small, she deemed 
them sufficient. It was of no use : 
she could make no impression on her 
father and mother, she could not shake 


42 


OSWALD CRAY. 


their refusal of consent, and she mar- 
ried Mr. Cray without it. Public 
opinion on the matter was divided. 
Some took Miss Oswald’s part. She 
was of an age to judge for herself— 
being, in fact, no longer very young ; 
and there appeared no good reason, 
save that he was not wealthy, for ob- 
jecting to Mr. Cray. But her family 
— father, mother, brother, sister — 
bitterly resented it, and said she had 
disgraced them. 

Mr. Cray had about eight hundred 
a-year, derivable from money in the 
funds, and he lived in the Abbey, at 
Halliiigham. The Oswalds enjoyed 
some three or four thousand a-year 
from landed property. They lived at 
Thorn dyke, and, as baronets, were 
very grand. Of course there was a 
great difference ; but some thought 
the difference might have been got 
over by Sir Oswald. Some went so 
far as to say that Mr. Cray, with his 
fine, manly person and good conduct, 
was a better man than that shrivelled 
old lord who was breaking the heart 
•f his poor wife the younger daughter. 
Sir Oswald and Lady Oswald could 
not be brought to see it ; none of the 
Oswalds could see it: and, take them 
altogether, brothers, cousins, uncles, 
and nephews, there was a large 
family of them. 

Mary Oswald married Mr. Cray, 
and he brought her home to Halling- 
ham Abbey, and her friends never saw 
her after : that is, they never would 
recognize her. Many a Tuesday, on 
which day the family from Thorndyke 
would drive into Hallingham in their 
carriage and four — as was the habit 
with some of the country people — 
did they without notice. 

They would in close carriage, 
the old bar(ineta|^d my lady, and 
their daughtw^iPfances, who had no 
honiQi.now but theirs, end they would 
see Mrs. Cray at the Abbey windows, 
alone or with her husband, as the case 
might be, for the road took them past 
it, and all the greeting they gave to 
her was a stony stare. Time w’ent 
on, and there appeared a baby at her 
side, a pretty little fellow in long pet- 


ticoats, held in his nurse’s arms. 
That baby was namod Oswald Os- 
wald, and was the Mr. Oswald Cray 
whom you have seen : but the staro 
from the baronet’s carriage was not 
less stony than before. 

A twelvemonth more, when Oswald 
could just begin to run about in his 
pretty white frocks, and get his sturdy 
legs into grief, and his hands into 
mischief, another child was born, and 
died. Poor Mrs. Cray died herself a 
few weeks afterwards. People said 
she had grown weak fretting after 
Thorndyke, after her father and mo- 
ther, lamenting their hardness, re- 
gretting her own disobedience ; but 
jibople are prone to talk, and often 
say things for which there is not a 
shadow of foundation. She died 
without having seen her friends, un- 
reconciled ; and when Mr. Cray wrote 
to Sir Oswald a very proper letter, 
not familiar, but giving the details of 
her death, no answer was accorded 
him. Mrs. Cray, as Mary Oswald, 
had had a small income independent 
of her father, bequeathed to her by a 
relative, and this on her death passed 
to her little son. It was just one 
hundred and six pounds per year, and 
she made it her dying request that he 
should use the surname of Oswald in 
addition to that of Cray should be 
known henceforth as Master Oswald 
Cray. 

And it was so ; and when the boy 
first entered a noted public school for 
gentlemen’s sons far away from Hal- 
lingham, and the boys Saw him sign 
his exercises and copies “ 0. Oswald 
Cray,” they asked him what the ^^0 
was for. For his Christian name, he 
answered. Was not Oswald his 
Christian name ? they wanted to 
know. Yes, his Christian and his 
surname both, he said, Oswald Os- 
wald. It was his grandpapa’s Chris- 
tian and surname. Sir Oswald Oswald. 
Oh I was he his grandfather ? asked 
the boys. Yes ; but — Oswald added 
in his 'innate love for truth — he had 
never been the better for him. Sir Os- 
wald had never spoken to him in his 
life ; there was something unpleasant 


OSWALD CRAY. 


43 


between Sir Oswald and bis papa, he 
did not know what. No, at that 
stage of the boy’s age he was uncon- 
Q.cious of what the breach was, or that 
his dead mother had made it. 

Poor Os-wald Cray had not had a 
very happy childhood’s life ; he 
scarcely knew what was meant by the 
words, home ties, home love. He 
had never enjoyed them. There was 
a second Mrs. Cray, and a second 
family ; and she did not like the boy 
Oswald, or care that he should be at 
home. He was but four years old 
when he was despatched to a far-off 
preparatory school, where he was to 
pass the holidays as well as the half 
years. Now and then, about once in 
two years or so, he would be taken 
home for a fortnight at Christmas, or 
Mr. Cray would make an occasional 
journey to see him. 

It was at ten years old that he was 
removed to the public school, where 
the boys asked him the meaning of 
the ^‘0.” Before that time grief had 
penetrated to the family of Sir^ Os- 
wald Oswald. His only son and heir 
had died in battle in India; his 
daughter Frances, who had never 
gone back to the old lord, had died at 
Thorndyke ; and Sir Oswald and his 
wife were childless. Neither sur- 
vived the year, and when Oswald 
was eleven years old, and beginning 
to hold his own in the school, the 
title had devolved on the next brother. 
Sir John. Sir John was sixty when 
he came into it, and had no children. 
He had offended the Oswald family 
in the same way that Mary Oswald 
offended them, by marrying a lady 
whose family was not as good as his 
own. 

That lady was the present widow. 
Lady Oswald, now lamenting over the 
threatened innovation of the railway 
sheds. Sir John Oswald enjoyed the 
title but four years only, and then it 
lapsed to a cousin, for Sir John had 
no children. The cousin. Sir Philip, 
enjoyed it still, and lived at Thorn- 
dyke, and his eldest son would suc- 
ceed him. They were proud also, 
‘those present Oswalds of Thorndyke, 


and never had spoken to Oswald Cray 
in their lives. The prejudices of old 
Sir Oswald had descended upon them, 
and Sir Philip and Lady Oswald 
would pass Oswald Cray, if by chance 
they met him, with as stony a stare as 
had ever greeted his poor mother. 

Perhaps the only one of the whole 
Oswald family upon whom the preju- 
dices had not descended, was the 
widow of Sir John. Upon the death 
of her husband, when she had to leave 
Thorndyke, she took on lease the house 
at Hallingham, and had never removed 
from it. Her jointure was not a large 
one ; but Sir John had bequeathed to 
her certain monies absolutely, and 
these were at her own disposal. These 
monies were also being added to 
yearly, for she did not spend all her 
income ; so that it was supposed Lady 
Oswald would leave a pretty little 
sum behind her, by which somebody 
would benefit. There was no lack of 
“ somebodies” to look out for it, for 
Lady Oswald had two nephews with 
large families, both of whom wanted 
help badly. One of these nephews, 
the Reverend Mr. Stephenson, was a 
poor curate, struggling to bring up his 
seven children upon one hundred a 
year. Lady Oswald sent him a little 
help now and then : but she was not 
fond of giving away her money. 

The pride and prejudices of the 
family had not fallen upon her, and 
she noticed and welcomed Oswald 
Cray. He was fifteen when she set- 
tled at Hallingham, and she had him 
to spend his first holidays with her 
afterwards. She had continued to 
notice him ever since ; to invite him 
occasionally, and she was in her way 
fond of him : but it was not in the 
nature of Lady Oswald to feel much 
fondness for any one. 

And yet, though not in her inmost 
heart cherishing the prejudices of the 
Oswalds, she did in a degree adopt 
them. She could not be iudep^mdent 
and brave them off.- Conscious that 
she was looked down upon herself by 
the Oswalds, she could not feel suffi- 
ciently free to take up her ow^n stand- 
ard of conduct, and fling those preju- 


44 


OSWALD CRAY. 


dices utterly to the winds. Upon 
tolerably good terms with Thorndyke, 
paying it occasional state visits, and 
receiving state visits from it in return, 
she did not openly defy all Thorn- 
dyke’s prejudices. Though she ac- 
knowledged Oswald Cray as a relative, 
received him as an equal, there it 
ended, and she never by so much as a 
word or a nod recognized his father, 
Mr. Cray. She never had known him, 
and she did notenter upon the acquaint- 
ance. But in this there was nothing 
offensive, nothing that need have hurt 
the feelings of the Crays : Lady Os- 
wald and they were strangers, and 
she. was not bound to make their 
acquaintance, any more than she was 
that of other gentlepeople about Hal- 
lingham, moving in a sphere somewhat 
inferior to herself. 

!Mr. Cray had continued to reside 
at Ilallingham Abbey, and to live at 
it in a style that his income did not 
justify. However the Oswalds may 
have despised him, he did not despise 
himself; neither did Hallingham. Mr. 
Cray of the Abbey, was of note in the 
town ; Mr. Cray was courted and 
looked up to ; Mr. Cray went to 
dinner-parties, and gavemthem; Mr. 
Cray’s wife was faslnonable and ex- 
travagant, and so were Mr. Cray’s 
daughters ; and altogether Mr. Cray 
•was a great man, and spent thousands 
where he ought to have spent hun- 
dreds. 

He had four children, not counting 
Oswald — Marcus and three daughters, 
and it cost something to bring them 
out ill the world. Marcus, changeable 
and vacillating by nature, fixed upon 
half-a-dozen professions or occupations 
for himself, before he decided upon the 
one he finally embraced — that of a 
doctor. Chance, more than any thing 
else, caused him to decide on this at 
last. Altogether, what with home 
extravagance and the cost of his chil- 
dren, Mr. Cray became an embarrassed 
man ; and when he died, about two 
years previous to the opening of this 
story, a very slender support was left 
for his wife and daughters. His will 


did not even mention Oswald. Two 
or three hundred pounds were left to 
Marcus — the rest to Mrs. Cray, for 
her life, and to go to her daughters 
afterwards. 

Oswald had not expected any. 
Where a home gives no affection, it is 
not very likely to give money. When 
' Oswald had come of age he found that 
his own income, of which his -father 
was trustee, had not only been spent 
upon his education, but the principal 
had been very considerably drawn 
upon as well — in fact, it would take 
years to redeem it. '‘I was obliged 
to do it, Oswald,” his father said. I 
could not limit your educational ex- 
penses, and there was the heavy 
premium to pay in Parliament Street. 
I’d willingly have paid ?11 costs my- 
self ; but it has not been in my 
power.” 

Oswald was not ungenerous. He 
grasped his father’s hand and warmly 
thanked him, saying it was only right 
his own money should pay his cost, 
when there was so many at home to 
educate. Ah, it was not the money 
he regretted. Had every sixpence of 
it been spent — why, it was spent ; he 
was young and strong ; with a good 
profession before him, and brains and 
hands to work it, he could make his 
own way in the world, and he should 
make it. No, it was not the money ; 
but what Oswald had been hurt at, 
was the manner in which they had 
estranged him from his home ; had 
kept him from the father’s affection, 
which he had yearned for. He knew 
that the fault had been Mrs. Cray’s ; 
that his father held him aloof only 
under her influence. He did not allow 
himself to blame his father oven in his 
own heart ; but he could not help 
thinking that were he ever placed in a 
similar situation, be should openly 
love and cherish his first-born son, in 
spite of all the second wives in the 
world. Oswald had yet to learn by 
experience how utterly futile is that 
boast which wo are all apt to make — 
that we should act so differently in 
other people’s places. Never was there 


OSWALD CRAY. 


45 


a truer aphorism than the homely say- 
ing : Nobody knows where the shoe 
pinches save those who wear it.’^ 

Oswald Cray had been born proud : 
it might be detected in every tone of 
bis decisive voice, in every turn of 
bis well-set head, in every lineament 
of his haughty features. He could 
not help it. It is well to repeat this 
assertion, because pride is sometimes 
looked upon as a failing demanding 
heavy reproach. There it was, and 
he could not shake it out of him, any 
more than he could shake out his 
other qualities or feelings. It was 
discerned in him when a little child ; 
it was seen conspicuously in his 
school-days ; it reigned paramount in 
his early manhood. “ The boy has 
the proud spirit of his grandfather 
Sir Oswald,’’ quoth the gossips; and 
no doubt it was from that quarter that 
it had come. Only in his later days, 
those years between twenty and 
thirty, when thought and experience 
were coming to him, did it grow less 
observable, for he had the good sense 
to endeavor to keep it in due subiec- 
tion. 

But it was not a bad sort of pride, 
after all. It was not the foolish pride 
of the Oswalds generally, who deemed 
everybody beneath them ; it was 
rather that pride of innate rectitude 
which keeps its owner from doing a 
mean, a wrong, or a disgraceful ac- 
tion. It was the pride of self-esteem, 
of self-reliance ; that feeling which 
says '‘I must not do so and so, for I 
should disgrace myself — those care- 
less-livnng men around me may do 
these things, but I am superior to it.” 
Other young men might plunge into 
the world’s follies ; pride, if no better 
motive, kept Oswald Cray from them. 
He could not for very shame have 
borne a tainted conscience ; he could 
not have shown a clear outside to the 
world, open and fearless, knowing 
that his heart was foul within. 

He was not proud of his family de- 
scent from the Oswalds. Quite the 
contrary. He found no cause to pride 
himself on either the Oswalds or the 
Grays, So far as the Oswalds went, 


many a hundred times had he wished 
they w^ere no connections of his. All 
his life he had received from them 
nothing but slights — and slights to a 
man of Oswald Cray’s temperament 
bring the deepest mortification. He 
knew now how they had treated his 
mother ; he felt to his very heart how 
they despised himself. If he could 
have changed his dead grandfather 
into somebody else, a little less fool- 
ish and a great deal less grand, he 
would have been better pleased. 

But this very isolation from his 
mother’s family had tended to foster 
his own pride — the mortification 
which it induced had fostered it — just 
as the isolation from his own home, 
from his father, and the second family, 
had contributed to render him self- 
reliant. It is not your home-darling, 
bred up in fond dependence, sheltered 
from the world’s storms as a hothouse 
flower, who becomes the self-reliant 
man, but he who is sent out early to 
rough it, who has nobody to care for 
him, or to love him, in all the wide 
earth. 

Not a more self-reliant man lived 
than Oswald Cray. He was sure, 
under God, of himself ^ of his good 
conduct; and I think that it is about 
the best surety that a man or woman 
can carry with them through life. In 
moments of doubt, perplexity, diffi- 
culty, whatever might be its nature, 
he turned to his own heart and took 
its counsel, and it never failed him. 
It was with himself he deliberated ; 
it was his own good judgment, his 
right feeling, that he called to his aid. 
He had an honest, upright nature, and 
was strictly honorable : a proud man, 
if it is the proper sort of pride, nearly 
always is so. His ambition was great, 
but not extravagant ; it did not soar 
with him aloft in flights of fancy, vain, 
generally speaking, as they are ab- 
surd. He was determined to rise to 
the summit of his profession — that 
of a civil engineer, but he entertained 
no foolish dreams beyond it. To at- 
tain to that, he would use every dili- 
gence, every efibrt, consistent with 
uprightness and honor; and dishon- 


46 


OSWALD CRAY. 


orable efforts Oswald Cray would 
have scorned to use, would have 
shaken them from him as he shook a 
summer-day’s dust from his shoes. 

lie was connected with a firm of 
high repute in Parliament Street : 
Bracknell and Street. Oswald Cray 
was a partner, but his name did not 
appear as yet ; and, as you may 
readily imagine, the lion’s share of 
the profits did not fall to him. In 
fact, he had entered it very much as 
his half-brother had entered the house 
of Dr. Davenal — to obtain a footing. 
For more substantial recompense he 
was content to wait. Bracknell and 
Street were engineers to the Halling- 
ham line, and to Oswald Cray had 
been intrusted its working and man- 
agement. 

He had said to Lady Oswald, in 
answer to her reproach of his not 
calling to see her more frequently, 
that his time when at Hallingham 
was much occupied. True, so far ; 
but the chief and real motive which 
kept him from her house was a sort 
of sensitive feeling relating to her 
money. It was not that he dreaded 
people’s saying he was looking after 
it : he would have scorned that kind 
of reproach : but he did dread lest 
any degree of intimacy, any pushing 
of himself in her way, should cause 
her to leave it to him. I am not sure 
that you will quite understand this : 
understand him or his feeling. None 
but a man of the nicest honor, who 
was intrenched, as it were, in his own 
pride, the pride of rectitude, could 
have felt this delicacy. He did not 
want Lady Oswald’s money ; he knew 
that he had no claim upon any of it, 
no right to it, and he would not put 
himself in her way more than he could 
help, even as a passing visitor. Gos- 
siping Hallingham had said, ‘‘My 
lady would be leaving her nest-egg 
to Mr. Oswald Cray.” The gossip 
had penetrated to Mr. Oswald Cray’s 
ears, and his only notice of it was a 
haughty gesture of contempt; but in 
all probability it tended to increase 
his dislike to appear at Lady Os- 
wald’s. During these business visits 


to Hallingham, he sojourned at a re- 
spectable inn of the old school, a little 
beyond the town and the Abbey Gar- 
dens, called the Apple Tree, and had 
recently become more intimate with 
the family of Dr. Davenal 

Driven forth all his life from his 
father’s home, allowed to enter it but 
at rare intervals, and then as a for- 
mally invited guest, it cannot be sup- 
posed that Oswald Cray entertained 
any strong affection for his half- 
brother and sisters. Such a state of 
things would have been unnatural, 
quite in opposition to ordinary prob- 
abilities. It would be wrong to say 
that they disliked each other; but 
there was certainly no love : civil in- 
difference may best express the feel- 
ing. Marcus, the eldest child of the 
second Mrs. Cray, was from three to 
four years younger than Oswald. It 
had been better that Mrs. Cray had 
fostered an affection between these 
boys, but she did just the reverse. 
She resented the contempt cast on 
her husband by the Oswalds of Thorn- 
dyke ; she resented, most unreason- 
ably, the fact that the little money of* 
the first Mrs. Cray should have de- 
scended at once to Oswald ; she even 
resented the child’s having taken the 
distinguishing name : he was Oswald 
Cray, her son plain Cray. How 
worse than foolish this was of her, 
how wrong, perhaps the woman might 
yet learn : but altogether it did excite 
her against Oswald, and she kept him 
aloof from her own children, and en- 
couraged those children to be jealous 
of him. When the boys became men, 
they met often, and were cordial 
enough to each other ; but there was 
no feeling of brotherhood, there never 
could be any. 

For a twelvemonth after Mr. Cray’s* 
death, Mrs. Cray remained at the Ab- 
bey, and then she left it. It was too 
expensive a r(‘sidence for her now — 
its rent swallowing up half her in- 
come. She removed to a watering- 
place in Wales with her daughters, 
where, as she fractiously said, she 
hoped they should “get along.” 
Marcus, who had qualified for a sur- 


OSWALD C R A Y. 


47 


goon, became assistant to Dr. Dave- 
nal, and that gentleman at length 
gave him a small share in the profits. 
It was not a regularly constituted 
firm — “Davenal and Cray;’^ nothing 
of the sort. Hallingham knew that 
he was admitted a partner, so far as 
receiving a share went ; and they 
knew that that was all. 

He was liked in Hallingham, this 
young doctor, and Dr. Davenal had 
admitted him in kindness, to give him 
a standing. As time went on, he 
would have no doubt a larger and 
larger share, and eventually succeed 
to the whole. He was considered a 
suitable partner for the doctor; the 
Grays of the Abbey had always been 
looked up to in the town ; and young 
Cray’s reputation as a doctor was in 
the ascendant. Lady Oswald was 
getting to like him very much. She 
evinced a desire to patronize him, to 
push forward his interests ; and Dr. 
Davenal was really in hope that she 
would adopt him as her medical at- 
tendant for every-day calls instead of 
himself. Mr. Cray could spare the 
time for these useless visits better 
than Dr. Davenal. He, Mr. Cray, re- 
sided in lodgings in the town, and 
w^as growing in its favor daily in a 
professional point of view: not that 
he had displayed any unusual skill, 
but simply that Hallingham gave him 
credit for possessing it, because they 
liked him. « 

There was a large family of the 
Davenals, as there was of the Os- 
walds — speaking in both cases of the 
days gone by, and taken in collateral 
branches. Years and years ago Sur- 
geon Davenal had been a noted name 
in Hallinghaan ; he had a large prac- 
tice, and he had several children. It 
is not necessary to speak of all the 
children. Richard (the present Dr. 
Davenal) was the eldest son, and had 
succeeded to the practice. The two 
other sons, Walter and John, had 
chosen to enter the church, and both, 
when ordained, had gone out to the 
West Indies ; one of them became 
chaplain to the Bishop of Barbadoes, 
the other obtains i i church in the 


Island. Both had married there, and 
Caroline Davenal was the only child 
of Walter, the eldest of the two. 

Sara was twelve years old when her 
cousin Caroline arrived, an orphan — 
father and mother being both dead. 
A poor clergyman in the West Indies, 
dying young, was not likely to have 
amassed money, and the little child, 
Caroline, had literally nothing. Her 
father wrote an appealing letter to 
his brother Richard on his deathbed, 
and Richard Davenal was not one to 
reject it. 

She shall be my child henceforth, 
and Sara a sister,” said he, in the 
warmth of his heart, when the letter 
and the child arrived at Hallingham. 
And so she had been. 

But it was by no means so certain 
that Caroline Davenal would not some 
time be rich. A very large sum of 
money was pending in her mother’s 
family, who were West Indians. It 
had become the subject of dispute, of 
litigation, and was at length thrown 
into that formidable court in Eng- 
land — Chancery. Should it be de- 
cided in one way, Caroline would de- 
rive no benefit; if in another, she 
would come in for several thousand 
pounds. The probabilities were in her 
favor— but Chancery, as we all know, 
is a capricious court, and does not 
hurry itself to inconvenience. 

Upon the death of Dr. Davenal’s 
wife, his sister Bettini came to reside 
with him, and to rule his children. 
He had but three : Richard, Edward, 
and Sara. There had been others 
between Edward and Sara, but they 
died young. Fine lads, those of Dr. 
Davenal, although they took to 
plaguing stern Miss Bettina, and ag- 
gravatingly called her ^‘Aunt Bett.” 
Fine young men, too, they grew up, 
well-reared, liberally educated. Rich- 
ard embraced his father’s profession, 
For Edward a commission in the army 
was purchased, in accordance with 
his strong wish, and he was now Cap- 
tain Davenal. 

And Richard Davenal, the eldest 
son V here was he? Ah! it was a 
grie\ us story to look back upon. It 


48 


OSWALD CLAY. 


had oloudocl the life of Dr. Da venal, 
and would cloud it to the end. Dieh- 
ard was dead, and Dr. Davenal blamed 
himself as the remote cause. 

When Richard had completed his 
studies and passed the College of Sur- 
geons, he returned to Hallingham, 
and joined his father in practice, as it 
liad been intended that he should. 
He grew greatly in favor : he prom- 
ised to be as clever as his father : 
Hallingham courted him ; he was a 
man of attractive presence, genial 
manners, and he mixed a great deal 
of pleasure with his life of work. 
Dr. Davenal spoke to him seriously 
and kindly. He said that too much 
pleasure did not agree long with work, 
could not agree with it, and he begged 
him to be more steady. Richard 
laughed, and said he would. A sl^rt 
while, and startling news reached the 
ear^ of Dr. Davenal, that Richard was 
thinking of marrying one who was 
undesirable. Richard, his fine boy, 
of whom he was so fond and proud, 
marry her! It was not against the 
young lady herself that so much could 
1)0 urgent, but against her connections. 
Tliey were most objectionable. Dr. 
Davenal pointed out to Richard that 
to wed this girl would be as a blight 
upon his prospects, a blow to his 
reputation. Richard could not be 
brought to see it ; though not quite 
equal to themselves in position, she 
was respectable, he said, and her con- 
nections had nothing to do witli it, he 
did not marry them, he married her. 
The feud continued ; not an open feud, 
you understand, but an undercurrent of 
opposition, of coolness. Richard would 
not give up his project, and Dr. Dave- 
nal would not view it with any thing 
but aversion. As to giving his con- 
sent, that Dr. Davenal never would 
do, and Richard, hitherto dutiful, was 
not one to go the length of marrying 
in defiance. 

It was at this time, or a little before 
it, that the dispute had arisen in Bar- 
badoes touching the money already 
spoken of. Particulars of it were 
written to Dr. Davenal by his brother 
John, explaining also how Caroline's 


interests were involved. He, the Rev- 
erend John Davenal, said in the same 
letter that he was anxious to send his 
two little boys to Europe for their 
education, and was waiting to find 
them a fit escort ; he did not care to 
trust them alone in the ship. As Dr. 
Davenal read this letter, a sudden 
thought darted into his mind like a 
. flash of lightning. ^ What if he sent 
out Richard ? Richard could sift the 
details about this fortune, could, if ex- 
pedient, urge Caroline’s interests ; he 
could bring back the two little boys, 
and — and — the chief thought of all lay 
behind — it might break oft' the engage- 
ment with the -young girl here, Fanny 
Parrack I Quite a glow of satisfac- 
tion came over Dr. Davenal’s face at 
the thought. 

He sought a conference with his 
son. He told him that he wished him 
to take a voyage to Barbadoes ; that 
Caroline’s interests required somebody 
to go out ; that the two little boys 
had no friend to bring them over. 
Richard hesitated. To most young 
men a visit to the West Indies would 
be a welcome distraction ; but Rich- 
ard Davenal seemed strangely to hold 
back from it — to shrink from its very 
mention. Did some mysterious warn- 
ing of what it would bring forth to 
him dart unconsciously across his spir- 
it ? Or did he fear that it might in 
some way lead to his losing the young 
lady upon whom he had set his heart ? 
It cannot be known. Certain it was 
— remembered, oh, how remembered ! 
afterwards — that an unaccounta])le re- 
pugnance on Richard’s part did evince 
itself, and it was only to the persistent 
urgent persuasion of Dr. Davenal that 
he at length yielded. He yielded, as 
it were, under protest, and he said he 
did, sacrificing his own strong wishes 
against it to his father’s. 

He set sail, and he wrote on his 
arrival at Barbadoes, after a fine pas- 
sage ; and the next letter they received, 
a fortnight afterwards, was not from 
him, but from his uncle, the clergy- 
man. Richard had died of yellow 
fever. 

It seemed to turn the current of 


OSWALD CRAY. 


49 


Dr. DavenaPs life. He blamed him- 
self as the cause : but for his scheming 
— and in that moment of exaggerated 
feeling, of intense grief, he called it 
scheming — Richard, his best beloved 
son, would be still by his side to bless 
him. He had never been a scheming 
man, but an open and straightforward 
one ; and never, so long as he lived, 
would he scheme again. In his un- 
happiness, he began to reproach him- 
self for having needlessly opposed 
Richard’s marriage — to believe that 
Richard might have done worse than 
in marrying Fanny Parrack. He 
sent for her, and he found her a pretty, 
modest, gentle girl, and his repent- 
ance heaped itself upon him fourfold. 
He informed her very kindly and con- 
siderately of the unhappy fact of 
Richard’s death, and he told her that 
should any memento be found left for 
her amidst Richard’s effects when 
they arrived — any letter, no m attar 
what, it should be given to her. 

But that death had changed Dr. 
Davenal into an old man ; in the two 
years which had elapsed since, he had 
grown ten years older, both in looks 
and constitution. No wonder that a 
spasm of pain came over his face 
when Mr. Cray asked him whether he 
should forbid Caroline to him. You 
©an understand his answer now : So 
long as I live, I shall never ‘ forbid’ 
a marriage to any over whom I hold 
control and you can understand the 
anguish of the tone in which it was 
spoken. 

And that ends the chapter of retro- 
spect. 


CHAPTER Y. 

NEAL’S CURIOSITY. 

They sat around the dinner-table : 
Dr. Davenal, Miss Bettina, Sara, and 
Caroline. It was an unusually silent 
table. Dr. Davenal could not digest 
the demand of Mr. Cray for Caroline; 
Caroline was conscious and timid ; 
Sara scented something not altogether 

3 


comfortable in the air, and did not 
raise her eyes from her plate ; and it 
was one of the unusually deaf days of 
Miss Bettina. ^ 

Neal moved about noiselessly. Be- 
ing a treasure of a servant, of course 
he always did move noiselessly. Quite 
an artistic performance was Neal’s 
waiting : in his own person he did 
the waiting of three ; and so tranquilly 
assiduous was his mode of accomplish- 
ing it, so perfect indeed were Neal’s 
ways in the household, that Miss 
Bettina rarely let a day pass without 
sounding his praise. 

Strange to say, the doctor did not 
like him. Why it was, or how it was, 
he could not tell, but he bad never 
taken heartily to Neal. So^ strong 
was the feeling, that it may almost be 
said he hated Neal ; and yet the man 
fulfilled all his duties so well that there 
was no fault to be found with him, no 
excuse found for discharging him. 
The doctor’s last indoor man had not 
been any thing like so efficient a ser- 
vant as Neal, was not half so fine a 
gentleman, had ten faults where Neal 
did not appear to have one. But the 
doctor had liked /n'm, good rough 
honest old Giles, had kept him for 
many years, and only parted with him 
when he got too old to work. Then 
Neal presented himself. Neal had 
once lived with Lady Oswald ; he had 
been groom of the chambers at Thorn- 
dyke in Sir John’s time, and Lady 
Oswald kept him for a twelvemonth 
after Sir John’s death, and nearly 
cried when she parted with him, but 
Neal refused point-blank to go out 
with the carriage, and Lady Oswald 
did not wish to keep on three men- 
servants. Neal found a place in Lon- 
don, and they lost sight of him for 
some years ; but he made his appear- 
ance at Lady Oswald’s again one day 
— having come down by the new rail- 
road to see what change it had made 
in the old place and to pay his respects 
to my lady. My lady was gratified 
by the attention, and inquired what 
he was doing. He had left bis situa- 
tion, he answered, and he had some 
thoughts of trying for one 'in the 


60 


OSWALD CRAY. 


country : my lady was aware, no 
doubt, how close and smoky London 
was, and he found that it had told upon 
•his health : if he could hear of a quiet 
place in the country he believed he 
might be induced to take it, however 
disadvantageous it might be to him in 
a pecuniary* point of view. Did my 
lady happen, to know of one y My 
lady did ha|^pen to know of one — Dr. 
DavenaPs, who was then parting with 
old Giles. She thought it would be 
the very place for Neal ; Neal the very 
man for the place ; and* in the pro- 
pensity for managing other people’s 
business, which was as strong upon 
Lady Oswald as it is upon many more 
of us, she ordered her carriage and 
drove to Dr. DavenaPs, and never left 
him until he had promised Neal the 
situation. 

In good truth, Dr. Davenal deemed 
that Neal would suit him very well, 
provided he could bring his notions 
down to the place ; and that, as Lady 
Oswald said, Neal intended to do. 
But to be groom of the chambers to a 
nobleman who kept his score or so of 
servants (for that was understood to 
have been NeaPs situation in town), 
and to be sole indoor man-servant to 
a doctor, keeping three maids only 
besides, and the coachman in the 
stables, would be a wide gulf of dif- 
ference. Neal, however, accepted the 
place, and Dr. Davenal took him on 
the recommendation of Lady Oswald, 
without referring to the nobleman in 
town. 

But even in the very preliminary 
interview, when the engagement was 
made, Dr. Davenal felt a dislike steal 
over him for the man. Instinct w’ould 
have prompted him to say You will 
not suit me but reason overpowered 
it, and whispered, He will prove an 
excellent servant;” and Dr. Davenal 
engaged him. That was just before 
Richard went out to Barbadoes, and 
ever since then the doctor had been 
saying to himself how full of prejudice 
was his dislike, considering the excel- 
lent servant that Neal proved to be. 
But he could not get over the preju- 
dice. 1 


Neal cleared the table when the 
dinner was over, and placed the des- 
sert upon it. Dr Davenal did not 
care for dessert ; deemed it waste of 
time to sit at it ; waste of eating to 
partake of it. But Miss Bettina, who 
favored most of the customs and fash- 
ions of her girlhood, would as soon 
have thought of dispensing with her 
dinner. Dr. Davenal generally with- 
drew with the cloth ; sometimes, if 
not busy, he stayed a few minutes to 
chat with his daughter and Caroline ; 
but calls on his time and services 
were made after dinner as well as be- 
fore it. 

On this day he did not leave his 
place. He sat at the foot of the large 
table, Miss Davenal opposite him at 
its head, the young ladies between 
them, one on each side. Interrupted 
by Lady Oswald in the afternoon, he 
had not yet spoken to Caroline ; and 
that he was preparing to do now. 

He drew his chair near to her, and 
began in a low tone. Sara rose soon, 
and quitted the room ; Miss Davenal 
was deaf : they were, so to say, alone 

“ My dear, Mr. Cray is not the man 
I would have preferred to choose for 
you. Are you aware how very small 
is the income he derives from his 
partnership with me ?” 

Caroline caught up the glistening 
damask dessert napkin, and began 
pulling out the threads of its fringe. 

His prospects are very fair. Uncle 
Richard.” 

“ Fair enough, inasmuch as that he 
may enjoy the whole of this practice 
in time. But that time may be long 
in coming, Caroline ; twenty years 
hence, for all we know. I shall be 
but seventy then, and my father at 
seventy was as good a man as I am 
now.” 

Her fingers pulled nervously at the 
fringe, and she did not raise her eyes. 
“I hope you will live much longer 
than that. Uncle Richard.” 

So long as I live, Caroline, and 
retain my health and strength, so long 
shall I pursue my practice and take 
its largest share of profits. Mr. Cray 
1 understood that perfectly when I ad- 


OSWALD CRAY. 


51 


mitted him to a small share as a 
partner. I did it for his sake, to give 
him a standing. 1 had no intention 
of taking a partner ; I wished only 
for an assistant, but out of regard to 
his prospects, to give him a footing, I 
say, I let him have a trifling share, 
suffered it to be known in Halling- 
ham that he was made a partner of 
by Dr. Davenal. He has but two 
hundred a-year from me.” 

It does not cost much to live,” 
said Caroline. ^‘We need not keep 
many servants.” 

Dr. Davenal paused, feeling that 
she was hopelessly inexperienced. 

My dear, what do you suppose it 
costs us to live as we do ? — here, in 
this house ?” 

^‘Ever so much,” was Caroline’s 
lucid answer. 

It costs me something like twelve 
hundred a year, Caroline, and I have 
no house rent to pay.” 

She did not answer. Miss DavenaPs 
sharp eyes caught sight of Caroline’s 
damaging fingers, and she called out 
to know what she was doing with the 
dessert napkin. Caroline laid it on 
the table beside her plate. 

I cannot afford to increase Mr. 
Cray’s salary very much,” continued 
Dr. Davenal. To reduce my own 
style of living I do not feel inclined, 
and Edward draws rather largely 
upon me. Extravagant chaps are those 
young officers !” added the doctor, 
falling into abstraction. There’s not 
one of them, I believe, makes his pay 
suffice.” 

He paused, Caroline took up a 
biscuit and began crumbling it on her 
plate. 

The very utmost that I could 
afford to give him would be four 
hundred per annum,” resumed Dr. 
Davenal : and I believe that I shall 
inconvenience myself to do this. But 
that’s not it. There — ” 

Oh, Uncle Richard, it is ample. 
Tour hundred a year ! We could not 
spend it.” 

He shook his head at the impulsive 
interruption ; at its unconscious ig- 
norance. “ Caroline, I was going to 


say that the mere income is not all 
the question. If you marry Mr. Cray, 
he can make no settlement upon you; 
more than that, he has no home, no 
furniture. I think he has been pre- 
cipitate ; inconsiderately so : few men 
would ask a young lady to be their 
wife until they had a house to take 
her to ; or money in hand to procure 
one.” 

Caroline’s eyes filled with tears. 
She had hard work to keep them 
from dropping. 

'' Carine,” he. said, caressingly, is 
it quite irrevocable^ this attach- 
ment ?” 

The tears went down on the 
crumbled biscuit. She murmured 
some words which the doctor but 
imperfectly caught ; only just suffi- 
ciently so to gather that it was irre- 
vocable — or that at any rate the 
young lady thought so. He sighed. 

“ Listen to me, child. I should 
never, never attempt to oppose your 
inclinations : I should not think of 
forbidding any marriage that you had 
set your heart upon. If you have 
fixed on Mr. Cray, or be on you — it 
comes to the same — I will not set my 
will against it. But one thing I must 
urge upon you both — to wait.” 

Do you dislike Mr. Cray, Uncle 
Richard ?” 

Dislike him ! no, child. Have I 
not made him my partner ? I like 
him personally very much. I don’t 
know whether he has much stability,” 
continued the doctor, in a musing 
tone, as though he were debating the 
question with himself. “ But let 
that pass. My objection to him for 
you, Caroline, is chiefly on a pecuni- 
ary score.” 

‘‘ I am sure we shall have enough,” 
she answered in a lower tone. 

If I give my consent. Carry, I 
shall give it under protest ; and make 
a bargain with you at the safne t.me.” 

Caroline lifted her eyes. His voice 
had turned to a jesting one. 

What protest ? — what bargain ?” 
she asked. 

‘‘ That I give the consent in oppo- 
sition to my better judgment. The 


i 


52 


OSWALD CRAY. 


bargain is, that when jon find you ' 
have married imprudently and cannot 
make both ends meet, you don’t turn 
round and blame me.” 

She bent her eyes with a smile and 
shook her head in answer, and began 
twisting the chain that lay upon her 
fair neck, and the bracelets on her 
])retty arms. She wore the same 
rich dress that she had worn in the 
afternoon, and so did Sara ; but the 
high bodies had been exchanged for 
low ones, the custom for dinner at 
Dr. Davenal’s. 

‘‘ I will not withhold my consent. 
But,” he added, his tone changing to 
the utmost seriousness, “ I shall rec- 
ommend you both to wait. To wait 
at least a year or two. You are very 
young, only twenty.” 

I am twenty-one, XJncle Richard,” 
she cried out. “ It is Sa^ who is 
only twenty. ” 

He smiled at the eagerness. One 
year seems so much to the young. 

“ Twenty-one, then : since last 
week, 1 believe. And Mark has 
barely completed his five-and-twen- 
tieth year. You can well afford to 
wait. A year or two’s time may 
make a wenderful difference in the 
position of affairs. Your share of 
that disputed property may have 
come to you, rendering a settlement 
upon you feasible ; and Mark, if he 
chooses to be saving, may have got 
chairs and tables together by that 
time. Perhaps I might increase his 
ihare at once to help him do it.” 

‘‘ Would you be so kind as enlighten 
me as to the topic of your conversa- 
tion wijth Caroline, Dr. Davenal ?” 

The interruption came from Miss 
Bettina. Deaf as she was, it was im- 
poestble for her not to perceive that 
somq subject of unusual moment was 
being discussed, and nothing annoyed 
her more than to fancy she was pur- 
po'^ifely held in the dark. For the last 
five minutes she had sat ominously 
apright in her chair. Very upright 
•he always did sit, at all times and 
seasons ; but in moments of displeas- 
ure this stiff uprightness was un- 
pleasantly perceptible. Dr. Davenal 


rose from his seat and walked towards 
her, bending his face a little. He 
had a dislike to talk to her on her 
very deaf days : it made him hoarse 
for hours afterwards. 

“ Caroline wants to be married, 
Bettina.” 

Miss Bettina did catch the right 
words this time, but she doubted it. 
She had not yet learned to look upon 
Caroline as aught but a child. Could 
the world have gone round in accord- 
ance with the ideas of Miss Bettina, 
nobody with any regard to propriety 
would have married in it until the 
age of thirty was past. Her cold 
gray eyes and her mouth gradually 
opened as she looked from her brother 
to her niece, from her niece to her 
brother. 

‘'Wants to be what, did you say ?” 

“ To be married. Aunt Bett,” cried 
out the doctor. “ It’s the fashion, it 
seems, with the young folks now-a- 
days I You were not in so great a 
hurry when you were young.” 

The doctor spoke in no covert spirit 
of joking — as a stranger might have 
supposed. Miss Davenal being Miss 
Davenal still. Bettina Davenal had 
had her romance in life. In her young 
days, when she was not much older 
than Caroline, a poor curate had 
sought to make her his wife. She 
was greatly attached to him, but he 
was very, very poor, and prudence 
said, “Wait until better times shall 
come for him.” Miss Bettina’s father 
and mother were alive then ; the latter 
a great invalid, and that also weighed 
with her, for in her duty and affection 
she did not like to leave her home. 
Ay, cold and unsympathizing as she 
appeared to be now, Bettina Davenal 
had once been a warm, loving girl, an 
affectionate daughter. And so, by her 
own fiat, she waited and waited, and 
in her thirtieth year that poor curate, 
never promoted to be a richer one, 
died — died of bad air, and hard work, 
and poor nourishment. His duties 
were cast in the midst of one of our 
worst metropolitan localities ; and they 
were heavy, and his stipend waa 
small. From that time Bettina Dave- 


OSWALD CRAY. 


naPs disposition had changed ; she 
grew cold, formal, hard ; repentance, 
it was suspected, was ever upon her, 
that she had not risked her prudence 
and saved his life. Her own fortune, 
added to what he earned, would at 
least have saved him from the ills of 
poverty. 

Who wants to marry her ques- 
tioned Miss Davenal, when she could 
take her condemning eyes away from 
Caroline. 

Mark Cray.” 

The words seemed to mollify Miss 
Davenal in a slight degree, and her 
head relaxed a very little from its 
uprightness. “ She might do worse, 
Richard. He is a good man, and I 
dare say he is making money. Those 
civil engineers get on well.” 

I said Mark Cray, Aunt Rett,” 
repeated the doctor. 

'' Mark ! He won’t do. He is only 
a boy. He has got neither house nor 
money.” 

‘'Just what I say,” replied the 
doctor. “ I tell her they must wait.” 

“Mad 1 to be sure they must be 
mad, both of them,” complaisantly 
acquiesced Miss Davenal. 

“Wait, I said, Bettina,” roared the 
doctor. 

“You need not rave at me, Rich- 
ard. I am not as deaf as a post. Who 
says any thing about ‘fate?’ Fate, 
indeed ! don’t talk of fate to me. 
Where’s your common sense gone ?” 

“ Wait, I said. Aunt Bett ! W a-a-it ! 
I tell them they must wait.” 

“ No,” said Aunt Bett. “ Better 
break it off. ” 

“ I don’t think they will,” returned 
the doctor. 

Miss Bettina turned her eyes on 
Caroline. That young lady, left to 
herself, had pretty nearly done for the 
damask napkin. She dreaded but one 
person in the world, and that was 
stern Aunt Bettina. Miss Bettina rose 
in her slow stately fashion, and turned 
Caroline’s drooping face towards her. 

“ What in the world has put it into 
your head to think of Mark Cray ?” 

“I didn’t think of him before he 
thought of me,” was poor Caroline’s 


53 

excuse, which, as a matter of course, 
Miss Davenal did not catch. 

“ Has it ever occurred to you to 
reflect, Caroline, how very serious a 
step is that of settlement in life ?” 

“We shall get along. Aunt Bet- 
tina.” 

“ I’ll not get along,” exclaimed Miss 
Bettina,, her face darkening. “ I 
attempt to say a little word to you for 
your good, for your own interest, and 
you tell me to ‘ get along I’ How dare 
you, Caroline Davenal ?” 

“Oh, Aunt Bettina ! I said we 
should get along.” 

“ I don’t know that you would get 
along if you married Mark Cray. I 
don’t like Mark Cray. I did not 
think ” 

“ Why don’t you like him, aunt ?” 

“ I don’t know,” replied Miss Bet- 
tina. “ He is too light and careless. 
I did not think it a wise step of your 
uncle’s to take him into partnership ; 
but it was not my province to inter- 
fere. The Crays brought matters to 
nothing, you know. Lived like princes 
for a few years, and when affairs came 
to be looked into on Mr. Cray’s death, 
the money was gone.” 

“That was not Mark’s fault,” re- 
turned Caroline, indignantly. “ It 
ought to be no reason for your dislik- 
ing him, Aunt Bettina.” 

“It gives one prejudices, you see. 
He may be bringing it to the same in 
his own case before his life’s over.” 

“ You might as well say the same 
of Oswald,” resentfully spoke Caro- 
line. 

“ No ; Oswald’s different. He is 
worth a thousand of Mark. Don’t 
think of Mark, Caroline. You might 
do so much better ; better in all 
ways.” 

“ I don’t care to do better,” was the 
rebellious answer. And then, half- 
frightened at it, repenting of its inso- 
l^^nce, poor Caroline burst into tears. 
She felt very indignant at the dis- 
paragement of Mark. Fortunately for 
her. Miss Davenal mistook the words. 

“ We don’t care that you should do 
better I Of course we care. What 
are you thinking of, child ? Your 


54 


OSWALD CRAY. 


uncle studies jour interests as much 
as he would study Sara’s.’^ 

‘‘ More impulsively interrupted 
the doctor, who was pacing the room, 
his hands under his coat-tails. I 
might feel less scrupulous in opposing 
Sara’s inclination.” 

“ You hear, Caroline ! The doctor 
opposes this inclination of yours I” 
Caroline cast a look to him, a sort 
of helpless appeal : not only that he 
would not oppose it, but that he would 
set right Miss Davenal. 

I don’t oppose it, Bettina : I don’t 
go so far as that. I recommend them 

to wait. In a year or tw^o ” 

A loud knock at the hall-door 
startled Dr. Davenal. Knocks there 
were pretty frequent — loud ones too ; 
but this was loud and long as a peal 
of thunder. And it startled some- 
body besides the doctor. 

That somebody was Keal. Neal’s 
mind was by far too composed a one 
to be ruiffled by any sort of a shock, 
and Neal’s nerves were in first-rate 
order. It happened, however, that 
Neal was rather unpleasantly near to 
the front door at that moment, and 
the sudden sound, so sharp and long, 
did make him start. 

When Neal removed the dinner 
things, he placed his plate and glasses 
in the pantry, and carried the tray 
with the other articles down to the 
kitchen. In going up-stairs again he 
was called to by Watton the upper 
woman-servant of the family, who 
was as old as Neal himself, and had 
lived with them for some years. She 
was in the apartment opening from 
the kitchen, a boarded room with a 
piece of square carpet in the middle ; 
it was called the housekeeper’s room, 
and was used as sitting-room by the 
servants when their kitchen work was 
over for the day. The servants’ en- 
trance to the house was on this lower 
floor ; steps ascending from it to the 
outer door in the back garden. 

“ Did you call me ?” asked Neal, 
looking in. 

Watton had her hands busy paper- 
ing srfne jars of jam. She turned 
round at the question, displaying a 


sallow face with quick dark eyes, and 
pointed with her elbow to a note 
lying on the table before her. 

A note for Miss Sara, Neal. It 
came five minutes ago.” 

“Jessy might have brought it up,’^ 
remarked Neal. “ Letters should 
never be delayed below.” 

“ Jessy has stepped out,” explained 
Watton. “And I want to get to an 
end with this jam ; Miss Bettina ex- 
pected it was done and put away this 
morning.” 

Neal carried the note up-stairs to 
his pantry, and there examined it. 
But beyond the fact that it was super- 
scribed Miss Sara Davenal, Neal 
could gather no information to gratify 
his curiosity. The handwriting was 
not familiar to him ; the envelope dis- 
played neither crest nor coat-of-arms. 
He held it up, but not the most 
scrutinizing eye could detect any 
thing through it; he gingerly tried 
the fastening of the envelope, but it 
would not come apart without vio- 
lence. As he was thus engaged, ho 
heard the dining-room door open, and 
peeped out of his pantry. 

It was Miss Sara. She was going 
up-stairs to the drawing-room. Neal 
heard her enter it ; and after the lapse 
of a minute or two, he followed her, 
bearing the note on a silver waiter. 
She had shut herself in. Somehow 
that conference in the dining-room 
was making her nervous. 

“Who brought it, Neal?” she care- 
lessly asked, taking the note from the 
waiter. 

“I am unable to say, miss. It 
came when I was waiting at dinner.” 

Neal retired, closed the drawing- 
room door, and descended to his 
pantry. There he began making pre- 
parations for washing his dinner 
glasses, rather noisy preparations lor 
Neal. He put some water into a 
wooden bowl, rinsed the glasses in it 
and turned them down to dry. Hav- 
ing advanced thus far, it probably 
struck him that a trifling interlude of 
recreation might be acceptable. 

He stole cautiously along as far as 
the dining-room door, and there came 


OSWALD CRAY. 


to a halt, bending down his head and 
ear. Neal could calculate his chances 
as well as any living spy. He could 
not be disturbed unawares by Sara 
from the drawing-room or the ser- 
vants from the kitchen ; and his sense 
of hearing was so acute, partly by 
nature, partly by exercise, that no 
one could approach the dining-room 
door from the inside, without his get- 
ting ample warning. Neal had not 
played his favorite part for long years 
to be discovered at last. 

There he had remained, listening to 
any thing there might be to hear in 
the dining-room, until he was aroused 
by that strange knock ; so loud, long, 
and near, that it startled even him. 
A noiseless glide back to his pantry, 
a slight clatter there with spoons and 
forks, and Neal came forth to answer 
the summons, with a far fleeter foot 
than Neal in general allowed his 
stately self to put forth, for the 
knocker had begun again and was 
sounding loudly. 

Is all the town dying mut- 
tered Neal. 

He pulled open the door, and there 
burst in two fine lads, sending their 
ringing shout of laughter through the 
house, and nearly upsetting the man 
in their wild haste. 


CHAPTER VI. 

A TACIT BAROAIN. 

Dr. Davenal stood in his dining- 
room in consternation, wondering 
what the noise could mean that was 
upsetting the equanimity of his house. 
Its sound penetrated even the deaf- 
ness of Miss Bettina, and she re- 
mained transfixed, until the room 
door was flung open with a loud com- 
motion, and two boys leaped in. 

Two merry-hearted boys of eleven 
and twelve, bearing in their dark 
skins the traces of their West Indian 
birth. They sprung simultaneously 
on Dr. Davenal, each clamoring for 


55 

the first greeting from Uncle Rich- 
ard. 

You rogues 1’^ exclaimed the doc- 
tor. '‘What brings you here to- 
day 

They were too excited to explain. 
One day extra ia a schoolboy’s holi- 
days, especially at the commencement, 
will turn young heads crazy. Sara 
Davenal, disturbed by the unusual 
noise, came running to ascertain its 
cause, and they quitted the doctor for 
her, kissing her lovingly. Then they 
had leisure for Caroline, and Miss 
Bettina. 

" Why are you home to-day 
shrieked Miss Bettina, unable to re- 
cover her equanimity, and giving a 
cold kiss to each boy. " We expected 
you to-morrow.” 

The boys explained then. The 
usher appointed to take charge of the 
boys whose homes lay this way, had 
received news that morning of the ill- 
ness of a relative, and had to leave a 
day sooner ; so they left also. 

"Nothing loth. I’ll answer for it,” 
cried Dr. Davenal ; and the boys 
laughed. 

He placed them both before him, 
and looked first at one, then at the 
other, regarding what alteration six 
months had made. There was a 
general likeness between them, as re- 
garded eyes, hair, and complexion, 
but none in features. Richard, the 
eldest, generally called Dick, was 
a good-tempered, saucy-looking boy 
with a turned-up nose ; Leopold had 
more delicate features, and seemed 
less strong. 

" You have both grown,” said the 
doctor; "but Leo’s thin. How do 
your studies get on, Dick ?” 

Oh — middling,” acknowledged 
Dick, a remarkably candid lad. "Uncle 
Richard, I’m the best cricketer in the 
whole school. There’s not one of the 
fellows can come up to me.” 

" The best what, Richard ?” said 
Miss Bettina, bending her ear to the 
lad. 

" Cricketer, Aunt Bett,” repeated 
Richard. ■Rk 

" Good boy ! good boy !” ^i^Aliss 


56 


X 


OSWALD CRAY. 


Bettina approvingly. Resolve to 
be the best scholar always, and you 
will be the best. You shall have a 
pot of fresh jam for tea, Dick.’^ 

Dick smothered his laughter. “ I 
am not a good scholar at all, Aunt 
Bett. Leo is ; but he’s a muff at 
cricket.” 

Not a good scholar ?” repeated 
Miss Bettina, catching those words 
correctly. “ Did you not tell me you 
were the best scholar ?” 

“No. I^’said I was the best 
cricketer,” responded Dick. 

“ Oh,” said Miss Bettina, her face 
resu^iing its severity. “ That will 
do you no good, Richard.” 

“ Aren’t you deafer than before, 
Aunt Bett ?” 

“ Am I what ?” asked Miss Bettina. 

Darker ! I never was dark yet. 
Not one of all the Davenal family 
had a skin as fair as mine. AVhat 
put that fancy into your head. Master 
Richard ?” 

“ 1 said deafer. Aunt Bett,” re- 
peated Richard. “ 1 am sure you 
are just as deaf again as you were at 
Christmas ! Uncle Richard, we had 
a boat-race yesterday. I was second 
oar.” 


“ I don’t like those boat races,” 
hastily interrupted Caroline. 

“ Girls never do,” said Mr. Richard, 
loftily. “As if ^they’d like to blister 
their hands witn the oars ! Look at 
mine.” 

He extended his right hand, palm 
upwards. Dr. Davenal spoke. 

“ I don’t like boat racing for you 
boys, either, Dick.” 

“ Oh, it was prime. Uncle Richard I 
One of the boats tipped over, and the 
fellows got a ducking.” 

“ That’s just it,” said Dr. Davenal. 
“ Boats ‘tip’ over when you inexperi- 
enced young gentlemen least expect 
it. It has led to loss of life some- 
times, Dick.” 

“Any muff can scramble out of the 
water, U^cle Richard. Some of us 
fellows can swim like an otter.” 

can’t swim at all, I 
supuflH What did Dr. Keen say 


when he heard of the boatful going 
over ?” 

Richard Davenal raised his honest, 
wide-open eyes to his* uncle, some 
surprise in their depths. “ It didn’t 
get to Keen’s ears. Uncle Richard I 
He knew nothing of the boat race; 
we had it out of bounds. As if Keen 
wouldn’t have stopped it for us, if he 
had known. He thought we were 
off to the cricket-field.” 

“Well, you must be a nice lot of 
boys I” cried Dr. Davenal, quaintly. 
“Does he give a prize for honor? 
You’d get it, Dick, if he did.” 

Dick laughed. “ It’s the same at 
all schools. Uncle Richard. If we let 
the masters into the secret, of all our 
fun, mighty little of it should we get.” 

“ I think they ought to be let into 
the fun that consists in going on the 
water. There’s danger in that.” 

“Not a bit of it. Uncle Richard. 
It was the jolliest splash I The chief 
trouble was getting the dry things to 
put on. They had been laid up in 
the boxes ready to come home with 
us, and we had to put out no end of 
stratagem to get at them.” 

“A jolly splash, was it? Were 
you one of the immersed ones, Dick 

“Not I,” returned Dick, throwing 
back his head. “As if we second- 
desk fellows couldn’t manage a boat 
better than that! Leo was.” 

“ How many of you were drowned, 
Leo ?” 

Leo opened his eyes as wide as 
Dick had previously done. “ Drowned^ 
Uncle Richard I Not one. We 
scrambled out as easy as fun. There’s 
no fear of our getting drowned.” 

“ No fear at all, as it seems to me,” 
returned the doctor. “But there’s 
danger of it, Leo.” 

Leo made no reply. Perhaps he 
scarcely defined the distinction of the 
words. Dr. Davenal remained silent 
for a minute, lost in thought ; then he 
sat down and held the two lads in 
front of him. 

“ Did either of you ever observe a 
white house, lying back on the hill, 
just as you pass the next station to 


OSWALD CRAY. 


57 


this — Hildon ? Perhaps you saw it 
this evening as you came by — ” 

I know it/’ cried out Richard. 

It is old Low’s. 

Old Low’s, if you choose to call 
him so, but he is not as old as I am, 
Master Dick. Some people in that 
neighborhood call him Squire Low. 
He is Lady Oswald’s landlord. A 
few years ago, boys, I was sent for 
to his house ; that very house upon 
the hill. Mr. Low’s mother was 
living with him then, and I found she 
was taken ill. I went for several 
days in succession ; sometimes I saw 
Mr. Low’s sons, three nice lads, but 
daring as you two are, and about 
your present age. One afternoon — 
listen, both of you — I had no sooner 
got home from Mr. Low’s, than I was 
surprised to see one of his men riding 
up here at a fierce rate. The railway 
was not opened then. I feared old 
Mrs. Low might be worse, and I 
hastened out to the man myself. He 
had come galloping all the way, and 
he asked me to gallop back as quick- 
ly_^^ 

'' Old Mrs. Low was dead 1” cried 
quick Dick. 

ISTo, sir, she was not dead. She 
was no worse than when I left her. 
Mr. Low’s three sons had done just 
what you tell me you did yesterday. 
They went upon the river at Hildon 
in a rowing-boat, and the boat upset — 
tipped over, as you call it ; and the 
poor boys had not found it so easy to 
scramble out as you, Leo, and your 
comrades did. One of them was out, 
the man said ; he thought the other 
two were not. So I mounted my 
own horse and hastened over.” 

But what did they want with you. 
Uncle Richard ? Were there no doc- 
tors near ?” 

Yes. When I got there a doctor 
was over the lad ; but Mr. Low had 
confidence in me, and in his distress 
he sent for me. It was the youngest 
who was saved, James.” 

‘'What I James Low, who goes 
about in that hand-chair ?” 

“ The very same, Dick. From that 
hour he has never had the proper use 


of his limbs. A species of rheumatic 
affection — we call it so for want of a 
better name — is upon him perpetually. 
When the illness and fever that super- 
vened upon the accident were over, 
and which lasted some weeks, we 
found his strength did not return to 
him, and he has remained a confirmed 
invalid. And that was the result of 
one of those tips over, which you deem 
so harmless.” * 

“Will he never get ^ell ?” asked 
Leo. 

“ Never, I fear.” 

“And the two other boys. Uncle 
Richard ? Did they scramble out at 
last ?” 

“No, Leo. They were drowned.” 

Leo remained silent ; Dick also. 
Dr. Davenal resumed. 

“Yes, they were drowned. I stood 
in the room where the coffins rested, 
side by side, the day before the fune- 
ral, Mr. Low with me. He told me 
how generally obedient his poor boys 
were, save in that one particular, the 
going upon the water. He had had 
some contentions with them upon the 
point; he had a great dislike to the 
water for them — a dread of their ven- 
turing on it, for the river at Hildon 
is dangerous, and the boys were in- 
experienced. But they were daring, 
spirited boys, who coiild see no dan- 
ger in it, and — listen, Dick ! — did not 
believe there was any. And they 
thought they’d just risk it for once, 
and they did so ; and this was the 
result. I shall never forget their 
father’s sobs as he told me this, over 
the poor cold faces in the coffins.” 

The young Davenals had grown 
sober. 

“ My lads, I have told you this 
little incident — but I think you must 
have heard somewhat of it before, 
for it is known to all Hallingham just 
as well as it is to me — to prove to 
you that there is danger connected 
with the water, more particularly for 
inexperienced boys. Where does the 
school get the boats ?” 

“ We hire them,” answered Dick. 
“ There’s a boat association in the 
place : poor men who keep boats, 


58 


OSWALD C R"A Y. 


and hire them out to anybody who’ll 
pay. ” 

“ They should be forbidden to hire 
them to schoolboys of your ao^e. I 
think I shall drop a hint to Dr. Keen.” 

Dick Davenal grew frightened. 

For goodness’ sake, don’t do that, 
Uncle Richard ! If the school knew 
it got to Keen through you, they’ll 
send me and Leo to Coventry.” 

I’ll take care you don’t get sent 
to Coventry through me, Dick. But 
I cannot let you run the liability of 
this danger.” 

Have they been at any thing 
wrong ?” asked Miss Bettina. She 
had caught about a word in a hun- 
dred. After Dick’s reflection on her 
increased deafness, she would not 
have bent her ear by one-tenth of an 
inch. 

''It is not very right,” said the 
doctor. " They had better have some- 
thing to eat, Bettina,” he continued, 
contriving to make her hear. " The 
dinner’s hardly cold.” 

"Uncle Richard,” said Leo, a 
thoughtful lad, who had sat down, 
and was nursing his knee in a reverie, 
"do you think those poor drowned 
boys went to heaven ?” 

" Oh, lad, I hope so I” 

The doctor spoke impulsively, al- 
most in an accent of pain. Since the 
loss of his own son, his voice would 
at times wear a pained tone. 

" God is over all, Leo. And God 
is more merciful than man.” 

Leo continued to nurse his leg. 
Dick, who had little thought about 
him, had thrown his arms around 
Sara’s waist, and was whispering to 
her. Both the lads loved Sara. When 
they had arrived, little strangers from 
the West Indies, new to the doctor’s 
house and its inmates, new to every 
thing else, they had taken wonder- 
fully to Sara, and she to them. You 
do not need to be told that they were 
the lads whom poor Richard Davenal 
was to have escorted over ; and when 
they came they brought his effects 
with them. 

" I don’t think I’ll go on the water 


again at school. Uncle Richard,” said 
Leo. 

" I don’t much think you will,” said 
the doctor. 

On this same evening, and about 
this same time, Mr. Oswald Cray was 
on his way to pay a visit at Dr. Dave- 
nal’s. He had concluded his inter- 
view with Lady Oswald in the after- 
noon, declining her invitation to re- 
main for dinner, had transacted his 
other business in the town, had dined 
at his rustic inn, the " Apple Tree,” 
and had nothing to do now until the 
departure of the night train, by which 
he would return to town. He en- 
countered his half-brother as he passed 
down New Street, in which eligible 
quarter were situated the lodgings of 
Marcus Davenal. Marcus had just 
turned out of them. 

" Will you walk in, Osw'ald ?” he 
asked, as they shook hands. “ I heard 
you were coming down. Lady Os- 
wald told me she had sent for you.” 

" Not now,” replied Oswald. " I 
am going on to Dr. Davenal’s. My 
visit here to-day was to Lady Oswald, 
but I left town before her message 
reached me. We are going to take a 
strip of her ground for sheds, and she 
does not like it.” 

" Not like it I” echoed Mark. " It’s 
worse than that. You should have 
seen the way she was in this after- 
noon. It won’t hurt the grounds.” 

"Not at all. But she cannot be 
brought to see that it will not. In 
point of fact, the sound of it is worse 
than the reality will be. It does 
sound ill, I confess — rail way -sheds 
upon one’s grounds! I was in hopes 
of being the first to break the news to 
her : so much lies in the telling of a 
thing ; in the impression first im- 
parted.” 

" She said this afternoon that it all 
lay with you. That you could spare 
her grounds if you would.” 

" I wish it did lie with me : I would 
do my best to find another spot and 
spare them. The company have fixed 
upon the site, Low has glv.'n his con- 
currence, and there’s no more to be 




OSWALD CRAY. 


59 


said or done. I am very sorry, but 
it has been no doing of mine.. Are 
you not coming on, Mark ? Won^t 
yo|^ go with me to the doctor’s 

Marcns hesitated. It was scarcely 
the thing for him to pay a visit there 
so soon after his communication of the 
afternoon. If any business arose to 
take him to Dr. DavenaPs, that would 
be different : but otherwise — better 
wait until he heard from the doctor. 

“I’d rather not call this evening, 
Oswald.” 

“ Why ?” asked Oswald. 

Well — the fact is — I don’t see 
why I may not tell you — I have been 
asking the doctor this afternoon for 
Caroline. He did not give me a posi- 
tive answer, one way or the other ; 
and I don’t think it will look well to 
press a visit upon them just now.” 

Oswald Cray’s was not a demon- 
strative countenance : a self-controlled 
man’s rarely is : but certainly it ex- 
hibited marked surprise now, and he 
gazed at his brother inquiringly. 

“ You are surely not thinking of 
marrying ?” 

“ Yes, I am. Why should I not 
think of it ?” 

“But what have you to marry 
upon ? What means ?” 

“ Oh — I must get Dr. Davenal to 
increase my share. By a word he 
dropped this afternoon when we were 
talking of it, I fancy he would do it : 
would increase it to four hundred 
a-year. We might manage upon 
that.” 

Oswald Cray made no immediate 
reply. He, the self-reliant man, would 
have felt both pain and shame at the 
very thought of marrying upon the 
help of others. 

“You are thinking it’s not enough, 
Oswald ?” 

“ It might be enough for prudent 
people. But I don’t think it would 
be found enough by you and Caroline 
Davenal. Mark, I fancy — I shall not 
offend you ? — I fancy you are not of a 
prudent turn.” 

“ I don’t know that I am. But any 
man ^an be prudent when there’s a 
necessity that he should be ” 


“ It has not always proved so.” 

“ I see you think me a spendthrift,” 
said Mark, good-humoredly. 

“Not exactly that. I think you 
could not live upon as small an income 
as some can. Dr. Davenal gives you, 
I believe, two hundred a-year, and you 
have been with him six months : my 
opinion is, Mark, that at the twelve- 
month’s end you will find the two hun- 
dred has nothing like kept you. You 
will be looking about for another hun- 
dred to pay debts.” 

“Are you so particularly saving 
yourself?” retorted Mark. 

“ That is not the question, Mark ; 
I am not going to be married,” an- 
swered Oswald, with a smile. “ But 
I do save.” 

“ 1/ the doctor will give me four 
hundred a-year to begin with, there’s' 
no need to wait.” 

“ You have no furniture.” 

“ That’s easily ordered,” said Mark 

“ Yery easily indeed,” laughed Os- 
wald. “But there’ll be the paying 
for it.” 

“ It won’t take so much. We shall 
not set up in a grand way. We can 
pay by instalments.” 

“A bad beginning, Mark.” 

Mark rather winced. 

“Are you going to turn against me, 
Oswald ? To throw cold water on 
it?y’ 

Oswald Cray looked very grave as 
he answered. Mark was not his 
brother, and he could not urge him 
too much : but a conviction seated it- 
self in his heart, perhaps not for the 
first time, that Mark had inherited 
their father’s imprudence. 

“ These considerations are for you, 
Mark ; not for me. If I speak of 
them to you, I do so only in your true 
interest. We have never been brothers, 
therefore I do not presume to give a 
brother’s counsel — you would deem I 
had no right to do it. Only be pru- 
dent, for your own sake and Caro- 
line’s. Gbod- evening, if you will go 
back.” 

Neal admitted Mr. Oswald Cray, 
and Neal’s face lighted up with the 
most apparent genuine pleasure at 


60 


OSWALD CRAY. 


doing it. Neal was the quintessence 
of courteous respect to his better^, but 
an additional respect would show it- 
self in his manner to Mr. Oswald Cray, 
from the fact possibly that he had 
served in the Oswald family at Thorn- 
dyke, and Mr. Oswald Cray was so 
near a connection of it. 

Dr. Da venal was then in the garden- 
parlor with Sara. The noisy boys 
were regaling themselves with good 
things in the dining-room, under the 
presidentship of Miss Bettina. A few 
moments, and the doctor and Mr. Os- 
wald Cray were deep in the discussion 
of the proposition that had so moved 
them ; the doctor being the first to 
speak of it. Sara sat near the win- 
dow, having taken up some light 
work. A fair picture she looked, in 
her evening dress ; her cheeks some- 
what flushed, her neck so fair and 
white, the gold chain lying on it ; her 
pretty arms partially hidden by their 
white lace. Dr. Davenal stood in a 
musing attitude on the other side of 
the window, and Mr. Oswald Cray 
sat between them, a little back, his 
elbow on the centre table, his chin on 
his hand. 

''Mark has just told me of it,’^ he 
observed in reply to Dr. Davenal. 
" I met him as I walked here. I was 
very much surprised.^’ 

" Not more surprised than ’re- 
turned the doctor. 

" At least, surprised that he should 
have spoken to you so soon.^^ 

" What do you think of it asked 
the doctor, abruptly. 

"Nay, sir, it is for you to think,^’ 
was the reply of Oswald Cray, after a 
momentary pause. 

"I know — in that sense. My 
opinion is, that it is exceedingly pre- 
mature.^’ 

" Well — yes, I confess it appears 
so to me. I told Mark so. There’s 
one thing, Dr. Davenal — some men 
get on all the better for marrying 
early.” 

" Yes ; it’s true : and some all the 
better for waiting. I like those men 
who have the courage and patience 
to wait, bearing steadily on to the 


right moment and working for it. I 
married very early in life myself, but 
my circumstances justified it. Where 
circumstances do not justify it, a man 
should wait. I don’t mean waiting 
on to an unreasonable time, until the 
sear and yellow leaf’s advancing ; 
nothing of that : but there’s a medium 
in all things. I am sure you would 
not rush into an imprudent marriage : 
you’d wait your time.” 

A smile parted Oswald Cray’s lips. 

" I am obliged to wait, sir.” 

" That is, prudence obliges you ?” 

"Yes; that’s it.” 

" And I make no doubt your in- 
come is a good deal larger than the 
present one of Mark’s ?” 

" I believe it is.” 

Dr. Davenal stood in silence, twirl- 
ing his watch chain. 

" Give me your advice,” he said, 
turning to Mr. Oswald Cray. 

" Dr. Davenal, may 1 tell you that 
I would prefer not to give it ? By 
blood Mark is my half-brother ; but 
you know the circumstances under 
which we were reared — that we are, 
in actual fact, little more than stran- 
gers ; and I feel the greatest delicacy 
in interfering with him in any way. 
I will do him any good that 1 can : 
but I will not give advice regarding 
him in so momentous a step as this.” 

Dr. Davenal understood the feeling, 
it was a perfectly proper one. 

" Do you think he' has much sta- 
bility — enough to steer him safely 
through life, clear of shoals and 
quicksands ?” 

Oswald Cray’s opinion was that 
Mark possessed none. But he was 
not sure : he had had so little to do 
with him. 

“ Indeed, I cannot speak with cer- 
tainty,” was his answer. " Mark is 
far more of a stranger to me tiian he 
is to you. Stability sometimes comes 
with years only ; with time and ex- 
perience.” 

" I cannot tell you how surprised 
I was,” resumed the doctor, after a 
pause. " Had Mark come and pro- 
posed to marry Bettina, I could not 
have been more astonished. The fact 


OSWALD CRAY. 


61 


is, I had somehow got upon the wrong 
scent. 

The wrong scent exclaimed Mr. 
Oswald Cray, looking up. 

I don’t mind telling you, consid- 
ering how different, as it has turned 
out, was the actual state of things,” 
said Dr. Dav^enal, with a laugh. I 
fancied you were inclined to like Car- 
oline.” 

Mr. Oswald Cray’s deep-set blue 
eyes were opened wider than usual, 
in his astopishment. 

What caused you to fancy that ?” 

‘^Dpon my word I don’t know. 
Looking back, I think how foolish I 
must have been. But you see that 
idea tended to obscure my view as to 
Mark.” 

Oswald Cray arose from his seat 
and stood by Dr. Davenal, looking 
from the window. 

Had it been so, would you have 
objected to me ?” he asked ; and in 
his voice, jesting though it was, there 
rang a sound of deep meaning. 

No, I would not,” replied Dr. 
Davenal. “I wish it had been so. 
Don’t talk of it ; it will put me out 
of conceit of Mark.” 

Mr. Oswald Cray laughed, and stole 
a glance at Sara. Her cheeks were 
crimson ; her head was bent closer to 
her work than it need have been. 

Why did you ask if I would have 
objected to you ?” inquired the doctor. 
“ It was not so, was it ?” 

No, doctor, that it was not. On 
the contrary, I have seen for some 
little time that Mark and Caroline 
were getting to like each other.” 

I thought you said you were sur- 
prised ?” 

Surprised a,t Mark’s asking for 
her so soon. Not that an attachment 
was existing.” 

At that moment Dr. Davenal’s car- 
riage was heard coming up the side 
lane, Roger’s head and shoulders be- 
ing just visible over the garden wall. 
Dr. Davenal gave the man a nod as 
he passed, as much as to say he should 
be out immediately, and retreated into 
the room. It had broken the thread 
of the discourse. 


“You came down in answer to 
Lady Oswald’s message,” he observed. 
“ She said she had sent for you.” 

“ Not in answer to the message. I 
came away before it reached London : 
at any rate, before it reached me.” 

“ Lady Oswald’s in a fine way. I 
suppose nothing can be done ?” 

“ Nothing at all. It is unfortunate 
that her grounds abut just on that part 
of the line.” 

“ She will never stop in the house.” 

“You see, the worst is, that she 
has just entered upon the third term 
of her lease. She took it for seven, 
fourteen, or twenty-one years. I am 
not sure, however, that Mr. Low, 
under the circumstances, could oppose 
her depart — ” 

“Dncle Richard, the carriage is 
come round to the door ! How are 
you, Mr. Oswald Cray ?” 

The interruption came from the 
boys. Both had rushed in without 
any regard to noise ; or rather to the 
avoidance of it. Mr. Oswald Cray 
shook hands with them, and the 
doctor turned to shake hands with 
Mm. 

“ I have to see a patient or two to- 
night. A poor countrywoman’s son 
is ill, and I promised her to go over 
this evening if possible. Perhaps you’ll 
be here when I return. Bettina and 
the girls will give you some tea.” 

He hurried out ; and the bo}^s after 
him, clamorously enough. During the 
holidays. Dr. Davenal could rarely 
get into his carriage without those 
two dancing attendants round it, like 
a bodyguard of jumping savages. Mr. 
Oswald Cray turned to Sara, who had 
risen also, and stood before her. 

“ Just one moment, Sara, for a 
single question. Did you fall into the 
misapprehension that I was growing 
attached to your cousin ?” 

Her manner grew shrinkingly timid ; 
her eye-lashes were never raised from 
her hot cheeks. It seemed that she 
would have spoken, for her lips parted ; 
but there came no sound from them. 

“ Nay, but you must answer me,” 
he rejoined, some agitation distinguish- 
able in his tone. “ Did you do me 


62 


OSWALD CRAY. 


the injustice to suppose I had any 
thought of Caroline 
No. Oh, no.” 

He drew a deep breath, as if the 
words relieved him, took her hand in 
his and laid his other hand upon it, 
very seriously. 

‘‘ It was well to ask : but I did not. 
think you could so have mistaken me. 
Sara ! I am not an imprudent man, as 
I fear Mark is ; I could not, in justice 
to the woman whom I wish to make 
my wife, ask her to leave her home 
of comfort until I can surround her 
with one somewhat equivalent to it. 
I think — I hope — that another year 
may accomplish tlys. Meanwhile — 
you will not misunderstand me, or the 
motives of my silence 

She lifted her eyes to his face to 
speak : they were swimming in tears : 
lifted them in her earnestness. 

“ I shall never misunderstand you, 
Oswald.” 

And Mr Oswald Cray, for the first 
time in his life, bent his lips on hers 
to seal the tacit bargain. 


CHAPTER YIL 

EDWARD DAVENAL. 

It was a charming evening in the 
month of October. The heat of sum- 
mer was over, the cool, calm autumn 
reigned in all its loveliness. Never 
had the sun set more brilliantly than 
it was setting now ; never did it give 
token of a finer day for the morrow ; 
and Caroline Davenal, sparing a min- 
ute from the bustle of the doctor’s 
house, ran out in the garden and 
shaded her eyes while she looked 
at it. 

Caroline had an interest in the mor- 
row’s weather — insomuch as that it 
would be her wedding-day. Persua- 
sion and promises had proved stronger 
than Dr. Davenal and prudence, and 
he had consented to the early mar- 
riage, it may be said reluctantly. He 
had urged upon them the verb to 


wait ; but neither of them appeared 
inclined to conjugate it; Caroline 
especially, strange as it may seem to 
have to say it, had turned a deaf ear. 
So the doctor had yielded, and the 
plans and projects for the carrying the 
wedding out were set on foot. 

Dr. Davenal had behaved gener- 
ously. He increased Mark Cray's 
share to four hundred a year, and he 
gave them a cheque for three hundred 
pounds for furniture. You must be 
content to have things at the begin- 
ning in a plain way, if you must be in 
a hurry,” he said to them ; ‘‘ when 
you get on you can add costly furni- 
ture by degrees.” Miss Bettina would 
not give any thing. Not a penny- 
piece. ''No,” she said to Caroline, 
"you are flying in the face of wiser 
heads than yours, and I will not en- 
courage it. If you don’t mind, you’ll 
come to grief.” 

Caroline laughed at the " coming to 
grief.” Perhaps not without cause. 
Were they but commonly prudent, 
there would be little fear of it. Four 
hundred a year to begin upon, and* 
four times four in prospective, remote 
though the prospect might be, was 
wl^^t many and many a couple begiu- 
nii% life might have envied. Even 
Dr. Davenal began to think he had 
been over-cautious. It might have 
been better to wait a year, but they 
would do well as it was, if they chose. 
If they chose I it all lay in that. Per- 
haps what made people think of im- 
prudence in their case was, that both 
had been reared to enjoy a much larger 
income. 

Those prudential fears and scruples 
were over, however ; they belonged 
to the past ; nobojly retained them in 
the actual face of preparation. When 
Mark Cray was lookin g out for a housfe, 
the abbey, yet unten anted, occurred to 
him. It had been his father’s resi- 
dence ; it carried a certain weight of 
position with it ; and he thought it 
would be well that it should be his. 
Dr. Davenal acquiesced ; it was cer- 
tainly rather farther from his own res- 
idence than was convenient ; and it 
was at the opposite end of the town ; 


OSWALD CRAY. 


but that fact might have its advan- 
tages as well as its disadvantages ; 
and Mark took the abbey at a yearly 
rental. 

How busy they had been, furnishing 
it, and getting the wedding clothes 
ready, they alone could tell ! In the 
bustle, in the satisfaction of buying the 
new furniture, and settling it in its 
appointed places, the old prudent ob- 
jections, I say, were lost sight of ; 
completely forgotten. Miss Bettina 
thawed so far as to go down two 
. whole days to the abbey and superin- 
^tend ; and she read Caroline lessons 
do domestic management and economy 
from morning until night. 

Oswald Cray had delicately placed 
a fifty-pound note in his brother’s hand. 
‘‘Present-giving at these times seems 
to be the order of the day, Mark,” he 
carelessly said. “ If you and Caroline 
will choose something for yourselves, 
and save me the trouble, I shall be 
glad. You know more about dressing 
cases and work-boxes than I do. ” Al- 
together, the abbey, what with the 
purchased furniture, and a few pretty 
things that went down out of Dr. 
Davenal’s house, was quite sufficiently 
well set up. 

And now it was the evening pre- 
ceding the wedding, and the house 
was in a commotion of preparation. 
Servants were running hither and 
thither ; Miss Bettina, with her sharp 
voice and her deaf ears, was every- 
where, creating no end of mistakes ; 
the breakfast-table was being laid out ; 
Sara was quietly helping Jessy to pack 
her cousin’s travelling trunk ; and 
Caroline, useless as usual, was going 
into ecstacies over a present which had 
just come in. 

It was from Lady Oswald. A hand- 
some tea and coffee pot with their 
stands, sugar basin and cream jug, all 
of solid silver. Caroline ran round 
the housd to get admirers to view it, 
and ran into the room of Dr. Davenal. 

Neal was coming out as she en- 
tered, a waiter in his hand, therefore 
it was evident he had been bearing 
something to his master. Dr. Dave- 


63 

nal stood before the window looking 
at an unopened note. 

* “ Oh, uncle, do come and see ! It 
is the best present I have had : a sil- 
ver tea-service. I did not expect any 
thing like it from Lady Oswald.” 

“ Presently, child. All in good 
time.” 

He laid down the note on the table 
as he spoke, not having opened it. 
Caroline thought his tone and counte- 
nance were alike sad. 

“ Has any thing vexed you. Uncle 
Richard ?” 

“ A little, Carine. When one waits 
for the sight of a dear face, and the 
hours go by in expectation, hour after 
hour, from the opening of the day to 
its close, the disappointment brings a 
chill.” 

Caroline wondered. She did not 
understand that longing waiting yet. 

“ Do you allude to Edward, Uncle 
Richard ?” " 

Whom else should he allude to ? 
Since Richard’s death, Edward Dave- 
nal had grown dearer than ever son 
did to father. Dr. Davenal could 
willingly have laid down his life for 
him, and thought it no sacrifice. Ah ! 
if these sons and daughters could but 
realize this precious love that is lav- 
ished on them in all its strange inten- 
sity I 

“ Aunt Bettina’s vexed that he is 
not here. She says it will be putting 
the dinner off.” 

“We are too impatient, Caroline. 
I dare say he could not get here soon- 
er. Here’s Mark,” added the doctor. 

Dr. Davenal’s carriage was drawing 
up to the gate. The doctor had de- 
spatched Mark in it that afternoon to 
see a country patient : he waited at 
home for his son. Roger looked to 
the house as Mr. Cray got out, won- 
dering whether the carriage was want- 
ed again, or whether he might drive it 
round to the coach-house. Dr. Dave- 
nal raised his hand by way of signal 
and was hastening out. 

“TEon’i you come and see ipy tea- 
pot and things. Uncle Richard ?” cried 
Caroline, piteously. 


64 


OSWALD CLAY. 


** When I come back, Carine. The 
tea-pot can waitJ^ 

'‘And there’s that note on the table,” 
she said, resenting the slight on the 
tea-pot. “You have never opened it.” 

“ That can wait too. I know what 
^it is.” 

' The doctor walked quickly on, and 
Caroline folldwed him to the front 
door. Mark was coming in. 

“ Is the London train in, Mark ? — 
did you notice as you came by ? 
There’s one due.” 

“I did not notice,” replied Mark. 
“ I don’t much think it is in. I saw 
no bustle.” 

Dr. Da venal stepped into the car- 
riage. 

“ Turn round, Roger. The railway 
station.” 

The whistle was sounding as they 
drew near, and Roger whipped up his 
steeds. The doctor stepped on to the 
platform as the train dashed in. He 
elbowed his way amidst the crowd, 
trying to peer into every first-class 
carriage. 

“ Edward !” 

“ My dear father !” 

Captain Davenal leaped lightly out, 
an upright, slender man, with the un- 
mistakal)le look of a soldier ; a dark, 
handsome face, and a free and ready 
voice. 

“I have been looking for you all 
day, Ned.” 

“ Not up here, surely I” 

Dr. Davenal laughed. 

“Not likely. I just happened to 
come up now ; so it’s all right. You 
have some luggage, I suppose ?” 

“ A portmanteau . My servant’s 
here.” 

“ Good evening, Dr. Davenal. Ah, 
captain ! how are you ?” 

The salutation came from a passen- 
ger who had likewise stepped out of a 
first-class compartment. They turned 
to behold Oswald Cray. 

“ Why I You don’t mean to say that 
you have come by this train ?” cried 
Captain Davenal, in his quick manner. 

“ Yes, 1 have. And you ?” 

“ I have come by it, too. Where 
were our eyes, I wonder ?” 


“ In our own compartment, I ex- 
pect,” said Oswald Cray. “I was at 
the end of the train, and did not get 
out during the journey.” 

“ Neither did I. The same errand 
brings us, I suppose : Caroline’s wed- 
ding. It’s fine to be Mark Cray ! 
Y’ou and I must wait for our honors: 
we can’t afford these grand doings 
yet.” 

Dr. Davenal looked at his son. 

“If you can’t afford them now, Ned, 
when are you to afford them ?” 

Captain Davenal’s answer was to 
shrug his shoulders. 

“ There may come in a great rich 
ship some day,” he said, with his 
ready laugh. “Are you going that 
way, Mr. Oswald Cray ? We shall 
see you, by-and-by.” 

All the pride and affection of the 
father shone out in Dr. Davenal’s 
face as he passed through the town, 
sitting by the side of his brave son, 
who was in Roger’s place, and drove. 
A hundred hats were taken off ; a 
hundred pleased faces greeted them. 
The doctor remained passive, save for 
smiles ; but Captain Davcnal’s gay 
face was turned from side to side, in 
answer to the salutations, and he had 
something else to do besides attending 
to his horses. 

“ Take care, Ned.” 

“ All right, sir,” was the young 
officer’s careless answer. Rut he es- 
caped the wheel of a meeting carriage 
by only half an inch ; and Roger, 
seated behind, said to himself that the 
captain had not yet grown out of his 
randomness. 

He pulled the horses up with a jerk 
when they arrived, leaped out, and 
turned to give liis hand to his father. 
Neal had the door open, and Edward 
Davenal passed him with a nod and a 
fleet foot, for he saw his sister’s face 
behind, bright with joyous tears. lie 
kissed them away. 

“ JSara, you foolish child ! Keep 
the tears until I go again.” 

“ When will that be, Edward ?” 

“ To-morrow evening. Hush I” he 
whispered, checking her startled ex- 
clamation. “ Let me take my own 


OSWALD CRAY. 


65 


time for telling papa. I l^now he will 
be vexed.’’ 

‘‘We thought you would stay a w^eek 
at least.” 

“ I wish I could I Leave is difficult 
to get at all just now, on account 
of — I’ll tell you more, later, Sara.” 

Miss Bettina Davenal was at hand, 
waiting for her greeting. In the old 
days of his boyhood, she and he were 
undisguised enemies. The boy was 
high-spirited and rude to her, ten 
times worse than poor Richard : he 
had been the first to call her Aunt 
Bett, and to persist in it, in spite of 
her angry displeasure. He called it 
her still. 

“ Well, Aunt Bett 1 You are look- 
ing younger than ever.” 

“ Are you quite well, i^ephew 
Edward ?” 

“ In high-feather, aunt. And mean 
to keep so until the wedding’s over. 
When is yours to be. Aunt Bett ?” 

“ To-morrow at eleven,” was Aunt 
Bett’s unconscious answer. “ And 
right glad I shall be when it has 
taken place.” 

The shout of laughter that greeted 
her vexed Miss Davenal: she won- 
dered what the mistake was. But 
the captain turned away, for Caroline • 
was stealing towards them with con- 
scious cheeks, and the new silver tea- 
pot in her hand. 

“ It was unkind of you not to come 
before, Edward,” she said. “Some 
of my beautiful new dresses are 
packed up now, and you can’t see 
them.” 

I shan’t die of the disappointment, 
Carry,” was the ungallant rejoinder 
of the captain. “ What’s that you 
are carrying ? A trophy ?” 

“ It’s a tea-pot. It is a part of 
Lady Oswald’s present. Hers is the 
best of all, and I have had so many. 
Come and look at them : they are laid 
out in the garden room.” 

“ So many tea-pots ?” inquired the 
captain. 

“Nonsense, Edward! You know 
I meant presents.” 

He drev/ something covertly from 

4 


his pocket, and clasped it on her neck. 
It was a dazzling necklace. Caroline, 
loving ornaments excessively, was 
wild with delight 

“ Oh, Edward I how kind you are I 
I never liked you as^much as I do 
now.” 

“ Candid !” cried the captain : and 
Dr. Davenal laughed outright as he 
walked away to his consulting- 
room. 

His son followed him. The doctor 
had taken up the note which he had 
left on the table, and was about to 
open it when something strange in its 
appearance struck upon his eye. He 
carried it to the window and looked 
minutely at its fastening, at the claret- 
colored crest stamped in the envelope, 
that of the Oswald family. 

“Edward,” said he, “does it look 
to you as if this envelope had been 
tampered with — opened, in fact ?” 

Captain Davenal examined the 
fastening. It was quite daylight still, 
though less bright than before the sun 
went down. 

“ There’s not a doubt of it, in my 
opinion,” he said, handing the note 
back to his father. 

“ It’s very strange,” exclaimed the 
doctor. “Do you know, it has oc- 
curred to me lately to think that two 
or three of my letters have been 
opened.” 

“ By their appearance?” 

‘ ‘ By their appearance. But I could 
not be certain how or when it was 
done ; for aught I know, they might 
have been re-opened by their writers be- 
fore forwarding them to me. I do feel 
however, sure that this one has been 
tampered with since it lay here. It 
came by the same messenger that 
brought Caroline’s present, and Neal 
brought it in to me. I was deep in 
thought at the time, and I turned it 
about in my fingers, looking at it, but 
not opening it. I knew what its con- 
tents were — that they concerned a 
little matter Lady Oswald had to 
write to me upon — and I did not open 
it, but went to the station, leaving it 
on the table. Now I am fully certain 


66 


OSWALD CRAY. 


that that appearance of re-opening 
was not on it then.” 

Who could have opened it, then ?” 
quickly cried Captain Davenal. 

“ Xeal.” 

‘‘Yeall” • 

‘‘Neal — as I suspect.” 

** But I thought Neal was so faith- 
ful a man — so good a servant alto- 
gether I” 

An excellent servant, though I 
have never liked him. And latterly 
I have suspected the man’s truth and 
honesty. 1 don’t mean his honesty 
in regard to goods and chatties, but 
in regard to his own nature. If my 
letters have been opened, rely upon 
it, it is he who has done it.” 

Have you spoken to him ?” 

No. I shall speak now, though.” 

Dr. Davenal rang the bell, and 
Neal appeared. So calm, so quietly 
unconcerned ! — not in the least like 
a man who has just tampered with 
his master’s letters. 

Come forward, Neal. Shut the 
door for a minute. When I went out 
just now I left this note on the table 
— the one you brought in to me from 
Lady Oswald’s servant. I did not 
iOpen it before I w’ent out; but — it 
looks to me as if it had been opened 
since, and closed up again.” 

Dr. Davenal spoke in a quiet tone. 
Neal, entirely unruffled, save by a 
slight natural surprise, stepped close 
up to the table and looked first at Dr. 
Davenal and then at the note-, which^ 
however, the doctor did not particu- 
larly show to him. 

'‘I should think not, sir. There 
has been no one here to open it.” 

'' That it has been opened I feel 
certain. Who has been in the room ?” 

Not any one, sir,” replied Neal. 
‘*It has not been entered, so far as I 
know, since you left it.” 

There was nothing more to be said, 
and Dr. Davenal signed to him to go. 

I could not accuse him down- 
right,” he remarked to his son ; but 
enough has been said to put him on 
his guard not, to attempt isuch a thing 
again.” 

“He does not look like a guilty 


man,” cried Captain Davenal. “It 
is next to impossible to suspect Neal 
of such a thing. He is too — too — I 
was going to say too much of a gen- 
tleman,” broke off Captain Davenal, 
laughing at his own words. “At any 
rate, too respectable. His manner 
betrayed nothing of guilt — nothing of 
cognisance of the affair. I watched 
him narrowly.” 

“ True ; it did not. • He is an in- 
nocent man, Ned, or else a finished 
hypocrite. Of course I may be wrong 
in my suspicions : honestly to confess 
it, I have no cause to suspect Neal, 
beyond the powerful feeling in my 
mind that he’s not to be trusted— a 
feeling for which I have never been 
able to account, although it has been 
upon me since the first day I engaged 
him.” 

“We do take up prejudices without 
knowing why,” remarked Captain 
Davenal. “ I suppose sometimes they 
are false ones. Here’s Neal coming 
in again.” 

“ I beg your pardon, sir, for having 
so positively assured you that no one 
had been in your room,” he said, ad- 
dressing his master. “ I remember 
now that Mr. Cray entered it. I did 
not think of it, sir, the moment you 
questioned me.” 

“If he did, he’d not touch the let- 
ter,” said Dr. Davenal. 

“ Certainly not, sir. But I thought 
it right to come and mention to you 
that he had been in.” 

Neal withdrew, and Captain Dave- 
nal looked at his father. ^ 

“ This man seems quite honest in 
the matter. I think this is an addi- 
tional proof of it. Had he opened 
the letter himself he would not have 
forgotten that another person had 
been in the room.” 

Yery soon Neal appeared again. 
This time it was to say that dinner 
was served. Dr. Davenal nodded to 
him to close the door ; he and his 
son were deep in conversation. 

Ten minutes elapsed before they 
came out. Miss Bettina fidgeted and 
grumbled, but it did not bring them ; 
and when they did come, the doctor 


OSWALD CDAY. 


6T 


had a strange cloud upon his brow. 
Edward also, or else Sara fancied it ; 
but he grew merry as the dinner ad- 
vanced, joking and laughing with 
every one. 

She took the opportunity of speak- 
ing to him after dinner. He went 
out on the lawn at the back, to smoke 
his cigar in the starlight, and Sara 
stole after him. He threw his arm 
round her, and they paced the gravel 
walk. 

^^Were you telling papa before 
dinner that you should have to leave 
.to-morrow ?” she asked. 

I was telling him worse than that, 
my little sister.’’ 

“ Worse ?” 

You loving ones at home will 
think it so. You will, Sara. And 
my father — it’s a blow to my father.” 

Sara DavenaPs heart was beating 
against her side ; a thousand improb- 
abilities rushed into her brain. Tell 
it me, Edward,” she said very calmly. 
Sometimes, in moments of agitation, 
she could be calm, almost unnaturally 
so, outwardly. It is frequently the 
case with those who feel the deepest. 

The regiment’s ordered abroad.” 

. ^^Oh, Edward 1” 

For a few minutes neither spoke 
again. Sara’s greatest thought was 
for her father. She seemed to have 
divined how cruelly Dr. Davenal felt 
the separation from his sons ; Richard 
dead, Edward in London with his 
regiment. If he had to go abroad to 
remote countries, thousands of miles 
away — why, almost as good that he 
had died. They should feel it so. 

‘^And that explains why I could 
not get a long leave,” he resumed. 
''There’s so much of preparation to 
be made ; and we officers have to 
look to every thing, for the men as 
well as for ourselves.” 

"Have you told papa this?” 
breathed Sara, 

" I have told him, but not quite the 
worst yet. I did not say how soon 
we expect to sail.” 

"And when do you sail ?” asked 
Sara, breathlessly. 

"In a week or two.” 


They paced on in silence. Captain 
Davenal suddenly looked down at her 
and detected tears. 

" Don’t grieve, child. I am but a 
worthless sort of brother after all, 
never with you. Perhaps I shall 
come back a better one.” 

" Edward, can’t you sell out ?” 

" Sell out I” he exclaimed, in as- 
tonishment. " Sell out because we are 
ordered on active service. You are a 
brave soldier’s sister. Miss Sara Dave- 
nal !” 

" Some time ago, when there was 
a question of the regiment’s going 
out, you were to have exchanged into 
another, and remained at home, Ed- 
ward. It was just after Richard’s 
death, I remember. Can you not do 
that now ?” 

" Ho, I cannot. I can neither sell 
out nor exchange. It is impossible.’^ 

There was so much grave meaning 
in his tone, that Sara looked up in- 
voluntarily. He laughed at her earnest 
face. 

" Oh, Edward ! must you go ?” 

" There’s no help for it.” 

" Where do you go ?” 

"Malta, first. India — as we sup- 
pose — afterwards. ” 

" Papa may be dead before you re- 
turn.” 

" Ho, no 1 I trust not.” 

"It will be as though he had no 
children !” she exclaimed, almost pas- 
sionately, in her love for her father, in 
her grief. " Richard dead ; you gone : 
he will have none left.” 

"He will have you, Sara.” 

" 1 1 Who am I ?” 

" The best of us. You have given 
him no grief in all your life ; I and 
poor Dick have : plenty. It is best 
as it is, Sara.” 

" Don’t say so. It cannot be for 
the best. When do you really go ?” 
she continued, a faint, sad fear upon 
her that it was sooner than he had 
confessed. " Tell me the real truth.” 

"I have told you the real truth, 
Sara, as far .as I know it. We expect 
to sail in ten days or a fortnight, but 
don’t know exactly. I do not think 
it will bo delayed longer than that.” 


68 


OSWALD CRAY. 


You will come down again to take 
leave 

Of course I shall.” 

She could scarcely speak for the 
sobs that were rising. She strove 
bravely to beat them down, for Sara 
DavenaPs was an undemonstrative 
nature, and could not bear that its 
signs of emotion should be betrayed 
outwardly. She loved her brother 
greatly; even the more, as the doctor 
did, for the loss of Richard ; and this 
going abroad for an indefinite period, 
perhaps forever, rang in her ears as 
the very knell of hope. He might 
never return : he might go away, as 
Richard had, only to die. 

How long they continued to pace 
that walk underneath the privet-hedge, 
which skirted and hid the narrow side- 
path leading from the house to the 
stables, Sara scarcely knew. Captain 
Davenal spoke little, he seemed buried 
in thought ; Sara could not speak at 
all, her heart was full. Rarely had 
the night’s brilliant stars looked down 
on a sadness deeper felt than was that 
of Sara Davenal. 


CHAPTER YIII. 

A TREAT FOR NEAL. 

Yearly four-and-twenty hours sub- 
sequent to that, Dr. Davenal was 
pacing the same walk side by side 
with Lady Oswald. The wedding 
was over, the guests were gone, and 
the house, after the state breakfast, 
had resumed its tranquillity. Of the 
guests. Lady Oswald had alone re- 
mained, with the exception of Mr. 
Oswald Cray. It was one of tho§e 
elaborate breakfast-dinners which take 
hours to eat, and five o’clock had 
struck ere the last carriage drove from 
the door. 

Lady Oswald asked for some tea ; 
Miss Davenal, as great a lover of tea 
as herself, partook of it with her. 
Captain Davenal preferred a cigar, 
and went into the garden to smoke it : 


Mr. Oswald Cray accompanied him, 
but he never smoked. Both of them 
were to return to town by the seven 
o’clock train. 

By-and-by, the tea over, the rest 
came out on the lawn to join them — 
Lady Oswald and Miss Davenal in 
their rich, rustling silks, Sara in her 
white bridesmaid’s dress. The open 
air of the warm, lovely evening, was 
inexpressibly grateful after the feast- 
ing and fuss of the day, and they 
lingered until twilight fell on the 
earth. Miss Davenal went in then : 
but Lady Oswald wrapped her Indian 
Cashmere shawl, worth a hundred 
guineas, Hallingham said, more closely 
round her, and continued to talk to 
Dr. Davenal as they paced together 
the sidewalk. 

Her chief theme was the one on 
which you have already heard her 
descant — that unwelcome project of 
the railway sheds. It had dropped 
through for a time. There had been 
a lull in the storm ever since it was 
broached in the summer. Lady Os- 
wald complacently believed her re- 
monstrance had found weight with 
the authorities of the line, to whom 
she had addressed a long, if not a very 
temperate letter; but, in point of 
fact, the commencement of the work 
had been delayed for some convenience 
of their own. Only on this very morn- 
ing a rumor had reached Lady Os- 
wald’s ears that it was now to be set 
about immediately. 

'' I am not satisfied with Oswald,” 
she was saying to the doctor. “ Did 
you observe how he avoided the sub- 
ject at the breakfast-table ? When I 
told him he might exercise his power 
with the company, and prevent it if 
he pleased, he turned it off quietly.” 

I think he did not care to defend 
himself publicly, or to enter upon the 
matter,” observed the doctor. “ Rely 
upon it, he would prevent it if he 
could ; but his influence does not ex- 
tend so far.” 

“ I know he says it does not,” was 
the observation of Lady Oswald. 

Do you think he is true ?” 

*‘True!” repeated Dr. Davenal, 


OSWALD CRAY. 


69 


scarcely understanding in his surprise. 
'' Oswald Cray, true I Yes, Lady Os- 
wald. Never man lived yet more 
honestly true than Oswald Cray.’’ 

He looked towards Oswald Cray 
as he spoke, pacing the broad middle 
walk with his son and Sara ; at the 
calm, good face, with its earnest ex- 
pression, every line, every feature 
speaking truth and honor ; and the 
doctor’s judgment re-echoed his words. 

Yes, Lady Oswald, he is a true 
man, whatever else he may be.” 

I always deemed him so. But — 
to protest that he would help me if 
he could ; and now to let this dread- 
ful threat arise again !” 

But he cannot prevent its aris- 
ing,” returned the doctor, wishing 
Lady Oswald would exercise a little 
common sense in the matter. “ He is 
but a servant of the company, and 
must carry out their wishes. ” 

‘'I don’t believe it,” peevishly re- 
plied Lady Oswald. He is the en- 
gineer to the company ; and it is well 
known that an engineer does as he 
pleases, and lays his own plans.” 

He is one of the engineers ; the 
junior one, it may be said. I sup- 
pose you will not forgive me. Lady 
Oswald, if I point out, that when 
your interests and the line’s are at 
issue, as in this matter, Oswald Cray, 
of all others, is forced to obey the 
former.” 

''Was there ever so monstrously 
wicked a project formed ?” asked 
Lady Oswald, with some agitation. 

It is very unfortunate,” was the 
more temperate reply. I wish they 
had fixed upon any grounds but 
yours.” 

I wish they had ! It will send 
me into my grave 1” 

Careless words ! spoken, as such 
words mostly are spoken, unmean- 
ingly. If Lady Oswald could but 
have known how miserably they were 
destined to be marked out ! — If Dr. 
Davenal had but foreseen how that 
marking out would alfect all his after 
life — change as it were, its current, 
and that of one who was dear to him ! 

And because that worry was not 


enough, I have had a second to annoy 
me to-day,” resumed Lady Oswald. 

Jones gave warning to leavdl” 

Indeed !” returned Dr. Davenal, 
and the tone of his voLce betrayed his 
concern. He knew how minor vexa- 
tions were made troubles of by Lady 
Oswald ; and the parting with Jones, 
her steady coachman for many years, 
would be a trouble not much less 
great than this threatened building of 
the sheds. 

Why is Jones leaving ?” he in- 
quired. 

Because he does not know when 
he’s well off,” was the retort, spoken 
querulously. “ The servants latterly 
have been all quarrelling together, I 
find, and Jones says he won’t remain. 
I asked Parkins what she was good 
for not to stop their quarrelling, and 
she burst into tears in my face, and 
said it was not her fault. You are 
best off, doctor. Your servants are 
treasures. Look at Neal !” 

I don’t know that Neal is much 
of a treasure,” was the doctor’s an- 
swer. I’d make him over to your 
ladyship with all the pleasure in life. 
Do you feel the chill of the evening 
air ?” 

Lady Oswald looked up at the clear 
sky, at the evening star, just visible, 
and said she did not feel the chill yet. 

Dr. Davenal resumed. 

^^I have grown to dislike Neal, 
Lady Oswald. In strict correctness, 
however, ^ grown to dislike ’ is not 
the best term, for I have disliked him 
ever since he has been with me. 
He—” 

Disliked Neal I” interrupted Lady 
Oswald, wondering whether she might 
trust her ears. You dislike Neal ! 
Why 

I can scarcely tell you why. I 
don’t think I know myself. But I do 
very much dislike him ; and the dis- 
like grows upon me.” 

*‘You never mentioned this. I 
thought you were so satisfied with 
Neal.” 

I have not mentioned it. I have 
felt a sort of repugnance to mention 
what would appear so unfounded a 


70 


OSWALD CRAY. 


prejudice. y^a\ is an eflBcient ser- 
vant, and the dislike arose to me 
without cause : just as instincts do. 
Latterly, however, I begin to doubt 
whether Xeal is so desirable' a re- 
tainer as we have deemed him.” 

“ In what way do you doubt him 

Dr. Davenal smiled. 

A doubt has arisen to me whether 
he is true — as you have just said by 
Mr. Oswald Cray. I shall watch the 
man ; and, now that my suspicions 
are awakened, detection will be more 
easy. Should he turn out to be what 
I fear — a deceitful fellow, worse than 
worthless — he will be sent out of my 
house head foremost, at a minute^s 
warning, and get his true character. 
Lady Oswald, I think I could pardon 
any thing rather than deceit.” 

How angrily you speak !” breath- 
lessly exclaimed Lady Oswald. 

The words recalled him to cour- 
tesy. 

'' I fear I did ; and I ought to have 
remembered that he was a respected 
servant once of Sii^John^s, that it was 
you who recommended him to me. 
You will pardon my warmth. Lady 
Oswald : to any less close friend than 
yourself I should not have mentioned 
this. The fact is, a most unjustifiable 
trick was played me yesterday, and it 
5s impossible for me to Suspect any- 
body but Yeal. I shall watch him.” 

What trick was it ?” asked Lady 
Oswald. 

Dr. Davenal hesitated before he 
spoke. 

Perhaps it would be scarcely fair 
to mention it, even to you. Lady Os- 
wald. I am not certain : there’s just 
a loophole of possibility. If I find I 
am wrong, I will honestly confess it 
to you ; if the contrary, you and the 
world will know what a worthless 
scamp we have nourished in Neal.” 

Very agreeable words indeed ! es- 
pecially to Neal himself, who had the 
satisfaction of hearing them. Mr. 
Neal, with his soft tread, was gin- 
gerly pacing the narrow path behind 
the private-hedge, his steps keeping 
level with theirs j he having strolled 


out to take the evening air, and to 
hear all that he could hear. 

They were interrupted by the ap- 
proach of Captain Davenal and Mr. 
Oswald Cray. It was getting towards 
the hour of their departure. Sara 
came up with them. The doctor laid 
his hand on his daughter’s shoulder, 
and she walked by his side. 

Going ? Nonsense !” said the doc- 
tor. “ There’s no hurry yet.” 

When shall you be down again, 
Oswald ?” asked my lady. 

“ I believe very shortly. I must be 
down — ” about these alterations,” 
he had been on the point of saying, 
but stopped himself in time. There 
was no cause for bringing up the sore 
story oftener to her than was neces- 
sary. 

Will you promise that they shall 
not build those horrible sheds ?” 

If it lay with me, I would will- 
ingly promise it,” was his reply. I 
wish you would believe me, dear Lady 
Oswald.” 

Of course I have no claim upon 
you,” she fretfully continued. “ I 
know that. It is not my fault if I 
am unable to leave my fortune to you 
— what little I may have to leave. 
There are others who, in my opinion, 
have a greater claim upon me.” 

He seemed not to understand her. 
He turned his glance full upon her, 
haughtily questient. 

I beg your pardon. What did 
you say. Lady Oswald ?” 

Oswald, I have never spoken dis- 
tinctly to you about my money,” she 
resumed. I like you very much, 
and should have been glad to leave 
some to you : it is natural you should 
be looking out for it, but — ” 

Every line of his pale face was 
ablaze with pride as he interrupted 
her ; his voice, calm, low, terribly 
stern, was ten times more impressive 
in its truth than one loud and angry 
could have been. 

“ Allow me to set you right, Lady 
Oswald. I have never in my life 
looked for one shilling of money from 
you : I do not recognize, or believe, 




OSWALD CRAY. 


71 


or see, any claim I can by possibility 
have upon you : of the whole world, 
the Oswalds are those upon whom I 
could least recognize it — from whom 
I would the least accept it. I pray 
your ladj'ship to understand me in 
the fullest sense of the words — from 
whom I would never accept it 

Never had he looked so like the 
Oswalds as he looked then. The red 
color came into Sara’s cheeks, and a 
faint sense of dread (did it come as a 
prophetic warning ?) stole into her 
heart that that pride might prove her 
deadMest enemy, perhaps his. Lady 
Oswald’s mood changed, and she 
laughed. 

You are independent, Oswald.” 

I am self-dependent,” was his 
answer. A fair field and no favor 
are all I ask. I believe I can make 
my way in the world far better than 
mon^y could make it for me. It is 
what I mean to try at, and do, heaven 
helping me.” 

“ But you need not have glared at 
me in that way,” she said, relapsing 
into fretfulness. I declare I thought 
it was old Sir Oswald of Thorndyke 
come out of his grave. My nerves 
are not strong, and that you know.” 

A better feeling came over him, 
and he held out his hand to Lady 
Oswald, his atoning smile wonder- 
fully frank and sweet. 

Forgive me if any thing in my 
speech or manner has offended you, 
dear Lady Oswald. But I believe 
you vexed me more than I have ever 
been vexed in my life.” 

“Well, well ; you shall be as inde- 
pendent as you please,” said Lady 
Oswald. “ Let us change the subject. 
When do you intend to follow Mark’s 
example, and marry ?” 

“Not until I can afford( it better 
than — than Mark could, I was going 
to say,” he added, glancing at Dr. 
Davenal and laughing. 

“ You do mean to marry some time, 
Oswald ?” 

“I hope so.” 

The answer was spoken so fer- 
vently, that they looked at him in 
surprise. Sara contrived to draw be- 


hind, and began plucking one of the 
flowers, already closing to the night. 
He resumed carelessly, as if conscious 
that hi|| tones had been too earnest 
for general ears. 

“ Men do marry for the most part 
in this good old-fashioned land of ours, 
and my turn may come some time. I 
think our time is nearly up, Davenal.” 

The captain took out his watch. 

“ In a minute or two. We can walk 
it in ten minutes if we put out our 
best speed.” 

As they went in, Oswald Crav 
looked round for Sara, and found sii|^ 
had not followed them. He turned 
back to her. 

“ I must say good-bye to you. — 
Sara ! you are crying ?” 

“ Oh, no,” she answered, brushing 
away the rebellious tears. “ It’s noth- 
ing.” 

He took her hand and placed it 
within his arm, and they advanced 
slowly to the house. 

“Will you tell me what the ' noth- 
ing’ is ?” he asked, in a low tone which 
of itself was sufficient to invite confi- 
dence. 

“ I cannot bear to part with Ed- 
ward,” she answered. “ Nothing has 
been said about it ; but he brought 
down bad news. They are ordered 
to Malta ; and thence he thinks he 
shall go to India. Edward said he 
should tell you as you went back to- 
night.” 

It was entire news to him, and he 
thought how greatly Dr. Davenal must 
feel it. Few admired that fine young 
officer, Edward Davenal, more than 
Oswald Cray. But he had no time to 
discuss it now, scarcely to say a word 
of sympathy. 

“ Good-by !” he whispered, as they 
halted on the threshold and he turned 
to press her hand in both of his, bend- 
ing his face a little down. “ Good- 
by. . And remember.” 

“ Remember what ?” she asked. 

“ That you don’t belong quite to 
yourself now.” 

He hastened in, leaving Sara stand- 
ing there : standing there with the 
significant words and their meaning 


12 


OSWALD CRAY. 


4 ,' 

beating pleasant changes on her heart. 
Captain Davenal came springing out. 

Hush, darling, be brave he said, 
as he took the kiss from his sister’s lips. 

Leave all that until I come down for 
mj real farewell.” 

And Sara was brave, and dried her 
tears, and confided in the prospect of 
that real farewell ; little dreaming that 
it was destined never to be spoken. 


J 0 CHAPTER IX 

LADY OSWALD’S JOURNEY. 

Mr. Marcus Cray’s marriage had 
taken place on a Thursday, and the 
time went on to the following Satur- 
day week with little to mark it. — 
Enough, as events were unhappily to 
turn out, was to mark it then. They, 
Marcus Cray and his wife, were ex- 
pected home that evening ; but it is 
not with them that we have just at 
present to do. 

On this Saturday morning, Oswald 
Cray had comb down to Hallingham 
on business connected with the line. 
In the course of the day he called on 
Lady Oswald, and found her in a state 
not easy to describe. That very morn- 
ing certain men had been seen on her 
grounds, marking off the small por- 
tion of its boundaries intetided to be 
taken for the sheds. Convinced that 
all her hopes of immunity had been 
but vain dreams, she had become an- 
gry, hysterical, almost violent. Os- 
wald Cray had never seen her like 
this. 

It was an illustration of the misery 
we may inflict upon ourselves, the evil 
spirit that will arise from self-griev- 
ance. In point of fact, these sheds, 
to be built on a remote and low por- 
tion of her land, could not prove any 
real annoyance to Lady Oswald ; she 
could not see them from her windows, 
she did not go, ever, near the spot. 
The grievance lay in her imagination ; 
she had made it a bugbear, and there 
it was. In vain Oswald Cray pointed 


out to her that it had been the same 
thing with regard to the rail itself. 
When she first heard that it was to 
skirt her grounds, she had been as 
alarmed as she was now ; but when 
the work was complete, the trains 
were actually running, then Lady Os- 
wald found (though she did not ac- 
knowledge it) how void of reason her 
alarm had been : had the trains been 
fifty miles off she could not have seen 
less of them. It would be so with re- 
gard to the sheds, Osw^ald Cray told 
her ; he told her that even a less por-^ 
tion of the ground would be taken than 
was at first intended ; he did not add 
that he, by his persistent efforts in her 
cause, had obtained this little conces- 
sion, but he might have told her so 
with truth. He assured her that the 
thing could not prove an annoyance 
to her. All in vain. He might just 
as well have talked to the winds. She 
would not listen. Parkins sat in 
tears, administering specifics for the 
nerves,” and entreating my lady to 
be tranquil. My lady replied by say- 
ing she should never be tranquil again, 
and she actually abused Mr. Oswald 
Cray. 

Nay,” said Oswald, good-humor- 
edly, “it is your landlord you should 
blame, not me. He agreed to the 
thing instanter — the moment it was 
proposed to him.” 

Lady Oswald’s cheeks were burning 
asf she turned to Oswald. 

“ If he had refused instead of con- 
sented, what then ? Could they have 
done it in spite of him ?” 

“ It would have been done eventu- 
ally, I suppose. Not just yet : the 
company would have had to bargain 
with him, perhaps to dispute the mat- 
ter with him legally : and all that 
takes ti-^.” 

“ Had he persistently contended 
against it, the company might have 
grown weary ; have ended by fixing 
upon some other spot for their sheds,” 
she breathlessly cried, the excitement 
on her face deepening. 

Mr. Oswald Cray hesitated. 

“ It is possible, certainly ; but — ” 

“ I will go to him,” broke in Lady 


OSWALD CRAY. 


73 


Oswald. “ I will go to Low this very 
hour.^’ 

She started from her seat, upsetting 
a bottle which Parkihs held in her 
hand, almost upsetting Parkins her- 
self in her vehemence. Mr. Oswald 
Cray gently restrained her. 

My dear Lady Oswald, you will 
do no good by going to Low now. 
It is too late. The thing has gone 
too far.” 

'^It has not gone too far, Oswald 
Cray. So long as the sheds are not 
begun it cannot be too late. If Low 
did give his consent, he can retract it. 
The land is freehold, and freehold land 
cannot be seized upon lightly. Get 
my things. Parkins, and order the 
carriage.” And Parkins submissively 
retired to obey. 

“ Lady Oswald, believe me,” said 
Oswald, impressively, Mr. Low can- 
not now retract his consent if ho 
would. The agreement is signed : 
nay, I believe the money is paid. 
Your going to him will do no possible 
good; it can only be productive of 
further unpleasantness to yourself.” 

“ Have you a motive in keeping me 
away from him ?” asked Lady Os- 
wald, and his brow momentarily con- 
tracted at her blind pertinacity. Do 
you know that I have never once seen 
him upon this subject ? — never once.” 

No !” he said, really wondering 
at the omission. 

I would not go to see him ; I was 
too angry ; I contented myself with 
writing to him and telling him what 
I thought: and then, you know, un- 
til this blessed morning, when Jones 
came into the house with the news 
that the men were measuring the land, 
I never thought the thing would be 
really done. I will go to hiiji now, 
Oswald Cray, and all you say 
against it will not avail with me. If 
you had any courtesy, you would ac- 
company me, and add your voice to 
mine against this unjustifiable wrong.” 

Courtesy was an adjunct in which 
Oswald Cray was not naturally de- 
ficient ; in time, that day, he was. 
The business which brought him down 
was pressing, must have his full atten- 


tion, and be finished so as to enable 
him to return to town that night. 
He had snatched thes.e few minutes, 
while the clerks at the company’s 
offices were at dinner, just to see 
Lady Oswald. 

“ It would give me great pleasure 
to escort you anywhere. Lady Oswald, 
but to-day I really cannot absent my- 
self from Hallingham. I have my 
hands full. Besides,” he added, a frank 
smile on his face, have you forgotten 
how impossible it would be for me to 
go against the agreement made by the 
company with Mr. Low, by soliciting 
that gentleman to attempt to retract 
it?” 

I see,” said Lady Oswald, beating 
her foot pettishly on the carpet ; ‘‘bet- 
ter that I had called anybody to my 
aid than you. Are you cherishing 
resentment against me, Oswald Cray?” 

Oswald Cray opened his dark blue 
eyes in surprise. 

“ Resentment against you. Lady 
Oswald! Indeed I do not understand 
you.” 

“ I thought you might be remem- 
bering what I said at Dr. Davenal’s, 
the evening of your brother’s wedding. 
I mean about the money; which I 
said I could not leave you,” she con- 
tinued in a low tone. “You took me 
up so sharply.” 

“I fear I did. I was vexed that 
you could so misapprehend my na- 
ture. We need not recur to the sub- 
ject, Lady Oswald. Let it pass.” 

“ I must say a word first, Oswald. 
I believe, with all your fiery pride and 
your aptitude to take offence, that 
your nature is honest and true ; that 
you would save me from annoyance 
if you could.” 

“ I would indeed,” he interrupted, 
earnestly. “Even from this threat- 
ened annoyance I would doubly save 
you, if it were at all within my power.” 

“ Well, I want to say just this. I 
have always liked you very well; 
you have been, in fact, a favorite of 
mine ; and many a time it has occurred 
to me to wish that I could put you 
down in my will — ” 

“ Lady Oswald, I pray you”— 


74 


OSWALD CRAY. 


do be quiet, and hear me. 
I consider it a duty to myself to tell 
you this, and I always intended to 
tell you before my death. I fully be- 
lieve what you say ; that you do not 
wish for my money, that you would, 
prefer to make your own way ; I say 
I fully believe that, Oswald. There are 
some men — honorable to fastidious- 
ness, I call them — who are utterly in- 
capable of casting a thought or .a wish 
to the money of others ; you are one, 
as I believe : and there’s the addi- 
tional bar in your case with regard to 
my money, that it comes from the 
Oswalds. I don’t think you would 
accept money; in whatever form it 
came to you, from the Oswald family.” 

“I don’t think I would,’ replied 
Oswald. And he spoke the truth of 
his heart. 

Still, I judge it right to give you 
this little word of explanation,” she 
proceeded. I dare say, whenever my 
will comes to be read, that you will 
feel surprised at its contents ; may 
even deem that you had more legal 
claim upon it than he who will chiefly 
inherit. I do not think so. I have 
left my money to please myself : he 
to whom it is left has the best claim 
upon me in my judgment. I am happy 
to know that he will be rewarded : 
and he knows it.” 

Oswald felt a little puzzled : the 
‘Words ^‘and he knows it,” somewhat 
excited his curiosity. With her own 
family, who alone (in Oswald Cray’s 
opinion) could be said to have claims 
on Lady Oswald, she held but little 
communication : and a conviction stole 
over him that she did not allude to 
them, lie was destined (as it proved) 
never to forget those words ; and the 
construction he put upon them was, 
that the future inheritor of the money 
knew he was named as the inheritor. 
He said nothing. It was not a subject 
he cared to pursue ; he had neither 
right nor inclination to inquire as to 
the disposal of what Lady Oswald 
might leave behind her. Had he 
dreamt of the ill those words would 
work, he might have asked further 
particulars. 


I thought I’d say this to you 
some time, Oswald. Had you been 
less fiercely proud, and I more at 
liberty to dispose of what I have to 
leave, I should regret not remember- 
ing you. As it is, .perhaps all’s for 
the best.” 

That again struck upon him 
strange : 

I, more at liberty to dispose of 
what I have to leave.” 

Was she not at full and entire 
liberty ? — if so, why was she not ? 
The question set Oswald thinking. 

But he had no time to pursue 
thought, or any thing else that day, 
save business ; and he rose to depart 
Lady Oswald asked him if she should 
see him on her return from Mr. Low’s. 

Why trouble yourself to go there ?” 
he could not help once more asking. 
He felt sorry — sorry that she should 
subject herself to renewed disappoint- 
ment. 

“ I shall imperatively answered 
Lady Oswald. “ Surely, I am at 
liberty to pay a visit to my own land- 
lord if I please I” 

But circumstances seemed inclined 
to prove themselves stronger than 
Lady Oswald’s will. Even as the 
words left her lips, her coachman 
made his appearance with hindering 
news : one of the carriage horses had 
fallen lame. 

^‘Accept it as an omen that the 
visit would have brought forth ru> 
good luck,” said Oswald Cray, with a 
smile, while Jones stood, deprecating 
his lady’s anger. 

A doubt flashed across her mind for 
a moment whether the excuse was 
real, and the amazed Jones had tx) 
repeat it, and to assure his mistress 
that he was going “right off” for the 
veteri^ry surgeon then. 

“ iWvill not avail,’’ said Lady Os- 
wald. “ I shall go by train. Perhaps 
you can tell me, Oswald Cray, at what 
hours the trains leave for Ilildon ?” 

Oswald Cray said not another word 
of hindrance. To make use of the 
railroad, to which her objection had 
been so insuperable, proved that she 
was indeed bent upon it. He took 


0 S W AL 

from his pocket a list of the departure 
of the trains. 

The first train will pass Halling- 
ham at two o’clock/’ he said, consult- 
ing it. “ Stay, though ; that is express, 
and does not stop at Hildon. Then 
the next — the next — ” 

Perhaps you are seeking to show 
me that no train leaves for Hildon to- 
day ?” exclaimed Lady Oswald, in 
anger, mistaking the motive of his 
hesitation. You must have the de- 
partures by heart.” 

He would not take offence ; he saw 
how grieved was the mood she was in, 
and answered in a kind, calm tone, 
perfectly unrufiled. 

I was looking if there was no 
better train than the four o’clock one. 
Lady Oswald. I don’t know so much 
of the trains coming this way, as I do 
of those going to London. You will 
not like to leave later than four, on 
account of coming back by daylight.” 

‘‘Of course I should^not. I must 
leave earlier than four.” 

“ There is no train earlier : nothing 
at all between the two o’clock express, 
which does not stop at the smaller 
stations, and the four o’clock parlia- 
mentary. Not so pleasant a train to 
travel by, but it won’t much matter 
for the short distance.” 

“ And about coming back ?” 

“ There are several you can come 
back by. There’s one passes Hildon 
at half-past five ; another at six ; 
another at twenty-five minutes to 
seven. That is the London train, 
marked to reach Hallingham station 
at five minutes before seven, and leave 
it at seven. It is the one I shall go 
up by. — Then—” 

“You need not continue,” inter- 
rupted Lady Oswald. “ I shall not 
be as late as that. Mr. Low’s^^use 
is but five minutes’ walk from Mdon 
station ; there’ll be nothing to detain 
me. You are in a hurry to go back 
to London. Are you aware that Mark 
and his wife return to-night ?” 

“Yes, I heard somebody say so.” 

“ If you will stay over to-morrow, 
I shall be happy to see you to dine 
with me.” 


D C H AY. 75 

“You are very kind. I am com- 
polled to go back to-night.” 

“ To-morrow’s Sunday. What can 
you have to do in London on Sun- 
day ?” 

“ I have promised to pass it with a 
sick friend,” he answered. “ One not 
long, I fear, for this world.” 

Lady Oswald would have detained 
him to inquire who it was, and all the 
particulars, and he began to think he 
should never get away. Hastily re- 
plying to her, he at length went out, 
and met Dr. Davenal driving up to 
pay the usual daily visit. 

She was somewhat of a capricious 
woman. Lady Oswald. A few months 
before, in the summer time. Dr. Dave- 
nal had been hoping, it may almost be 
said secretly plotting — but the plot- 
ting was very innocent — to get Lady 
Oswald to favor Mark Cray suffi- 
ciently to allow of his paying these 
daily visits. Since then Lady Os- 
wald had, of her own accord, become 
excessively attached to Mark. That 
is, attached in one sense of the word. 
It was not the genuine esteem founded 
on long intimacy, the love, it may be 
almost said, that draws one friend to 
another ; it was that artificial liking 
which suddenly arises, and has its 
result in praising and patronizing; 
artificial because so shallow. In the 
new feeling, Lady Oswald had not 
only sanctioned Mark’s visits to her in 
the place of Dr. Davenal, but she had 
recommended him to everybody she 
knew, as the cleverest young surgeon 
in Hallingham or out of it. It had 
been Mark’s luck speedily to cure 
some fancied or real ailment of Lady 
Oswald’s in a notably short space of 
time, and Lady Oswald, who set it 
down to skill, really had taken up the 
notion that he had not his equal. We 
all know how highly-colored for tlie 
time are these sudden estimations of 
a popular doctor’s skill. None re- 
joiced more than Dr. Davenal, and he 
resigned Lady Oswald to Mark with 
inward satisfaction, and the best grace 
in the world. But during Mark’s 
absence on his wedding-tour the doc- 
tor had taken again the daily visits. 


76 


OSWALD CRAY. 


Roger pulled lip in the gravel drive 
as he encountered Mr. Oswald Cray ; 
but Oswald, who had outstayed his 
time, could only shake hands and 
hasten onwards. Parkins met Dr. 
Davenal surreptitiously as he en- 
tered : she had seen his approach, 
and she stole forwards on tiptoe to 
meet him, her tears dropping. When 
Lady Oswald was in her fretful 
moods. Parkins generally found ref- 
uge in tears. 

''What’s the matter now?” asked 
the doctor. 

" The men have begun to measure 
the ground, and that stupid Jones 
came running open mouthed to the 
house with the news, and my lady 
heard him,” explained Parkins. *' I’d 
not have told her ; if people held their 
tongues, the sheds might be built, and 
up, and she never know it. I thought 
she’d have gone out of her mind, sir ; 
and then Mr. Oswald Cray came in, 
and he talked to her. I think she’s 
calmer now ; I heard her talk ‘quietly 
to Mr. Oswald Cray before he left. 
But she says she’ll go off by rail to 
Mr. Low’s.” 

"Is she in the drawing-room ?” 

"Yes, sir. So well, to be sure, as 
she was this morning !” continued 
Parkins, drying her tears. " I don’t 
know when she has been in such 
spirits, and all because Mr. Cray was 
coming home to-night with his wife. 
The fancy she has taken for him is 
extraordinary ; she has been count- 
ing the days off since he was away, 
like a school-girl counts them before 
her holidays.” 

Dr. Davenal entered. He did not 
attempt to reason Lady Oswald out 
of the visit to Mr. Low. Quite the 
contrary. He told her the short trip 
by rail would do her good ; and he 
thought, which he did not tell her, 
that the interview with Mr. Low 
might set the affair at rest sooner than 
any thing else would, by convincing 
her that there could* be no appeal 
against the fiat, no delay in the carry- 
ing out of the work. 

When Lady Oswald reached the 


station, it happened that Oswald Cray 
was there. He was emerging from 
one of the private rooms with some 
plans under his arm when he saw her. 
She looked scared at the bustle of the 
station, and was leaning helplessly on 
her maid’s arm, uncertain where tc 
go, what to do. Oswald hastened to 
her and took her on his arm. Park- 
ins slipped behind quite thankful to 
see him ; she was as little used to the 
ways and confusion of a station as 
her mistress. 

"Will you venture still, Lady Os- 
wald, with all this turmoil ?” ^ 

" Will you cease worrying me ?” 
she answered, and the tone was a 
sharp one, for she fancied he still 
wished to stop her, and resented the 
intermeddling with her will. 

Did he wish to stop her ? If any 
such feeling was upon him, it must 
surely have been instinct; a previ- 
sion of what the ill-fated journey 
would bring forth ; of the influence it 
would indirectly bear on his own 
future life. 

He said no more. He led Lady 
Oswald at once to a first-class car- 
riage, placed her and Parkins in it, 
and then went to procure their return 
tickets. The time wanted yet five 
minutes to four o’clock, and he leaned 
over the carriage door and talked to 
Lady Oswald, ill as he could spare 
the time. No man had kinder feel- 
ings at heart than Oswald Cray, and 
it seemed to him scarcely courteous to 
leave her, for she was in a tremor 
still, until the train should start. 

He talked to her in a gay, laughing 
tone of indifferent subjects, and she 
grew more at ease. 

" Only think !” she suddenly ex- 
clai^ed, " I may return with Mr. 
Cr^jj^and his wife I Dr. Davenal 
told me to-day they were expected 
early in the evening ; and this is the 
way they must come. I shall be so 
glad when be is home !” 

Oswald shook his head at her with 
mock seriousness. 

" I’d not acknowledge my faithless- 
ness so openly, were I you. Lady Os- 


OSWALD CRAY. 


wald. To turn off Dr. Davenal for 
Mark, after so many years^ adhesion 
to him 

‘‘You know nothing about it, Os- 
wald. I have not turned off Dr. 
Davenal. But you may depend upon 
one thing — that Mark is a rising man. 
He will make a greater name than 
you in the world.” 

“ Yery likely. I hope he will make 
a name. For myself — ” 

The whistle sounded, and Oswald 
drew away from the door. Lady Os- 
wald put out her hand, and he shook 
it warmly. 

“ Shall I see you on my return ?” 

“ Possibly, just a glimpse,” he an- 
swered. I’ll look out for you when 
the trains come in. Good-by.” 

“ But you’ll wish me luck, Oswald 
— although you may be bound in 
honor to the interests of the enemy 
and those wretched sheds ?” 

“ I wish it you heartily and sin- 
cerely ; in all ways. Lady Oswald.” 

His tone was hearty as the words, 
his clasp sincere. Lady Oswald with- 
drew her hand, and left him a pleas- 
ant, cordial smile as the train puffed 
on. 

“ One can’t help liking him. Park- 
ins, with all his obstinate contrari- 
ness,” she cried. “I wish he had 
been the surgeon. Only think what 
a name he would have made, had he 
possessed his brother’s talent !” 

“ So he would, my lady,” dutifully 
acquiesced Parkins. 

“ What a good thing we are alone I 
Most likely he contrived it. I declare 
I don’t dislike this,” continued Lady 
Oswald, ranging her eyes round the 
well-stuffed compartment. “ It is al- 
most as private as my own carriage.” 

So it is, my lady,” answered Park- 
ins. And the train went smoothly 
on, and in twenty minutes’ time Lady 
Oswald was deposited safely at the 
Hildon station. 

Sara Davenal was that day in a state 
of commotion, almost as great as Lady 
Oswald’s. But Sara’s arose from a 
different cause, and was of a pleas- 
urable kind. She and Caroline had 
never been separated since the arrival 


7T 

of the latter from the West Indies 
years before, and this last week or 
ten days’ absence had seemed to Sara 
like so many months. Now that the 
day of the return had actually come, 
Sara was feverish with impatience 
and delight. 

She dined early that she might go 
to the abbey to be in readiness to 
receive them. The precise time of 
their arrival had not been indicated ; 
“ early in the evening, but not to din- 
ner ; have tea ready,” had been Mrs. 
Cray’s words to her servants in the 
letter received by them on Friday 
morning. Sara was at the abbey be- 
fore five o’clock, hoping and waiting. 

Mark and Caroline were beginning 
as prudently as their best friends 
could desire ; two maid-servants only, 
engaged under the careful eye of Miss 
Bettina, comprised their household. 
The large, heavy door of the abbey 
opened to a large stone hall ; on the 
left of this was a large sitting-room, 
with cross-beams in its ceiling and 
deep-mullioned windows, looking on 
to the branching lines of rails and the 
station in the distance ; not so pleas- 
ant a view as had been the gay ab- 
bey gardens. Indeed, with the doing 
away of those gardens, the pleasant- 
est part of the abbey, as a residence, 
had gone. It was a rambling sort of 
place inside, with very little comfort. 
This room and the drawing-room 
above, were the only good-sized rooms 
in the house ; four modern rooms 
might have been put into that draw- 
ing room, and what its carpeting had 
cost, was something to be talked of. 
The bed-chambers were pigeon-holes, 
the domestic offices dark closets, paved 
with stone ; in short, the abbey was 
a grander place in sound than it was 
pleasant for use. The Crays, who 
had lived in it so long, were party- 
giving people, thinking more of show 
than comfort : the pigeon-holes were 
good enough ^ for them; the dark 
stone kitcheni^ight be made the best 
of by the servants ; the great draw- 
ing-room, larger than anybody else’s in 
Hallingham, gladdened their hearts. 
It was certainly an imposing room, in 


78 


OSWALD CRAY. 


spite of its low ceiling, when filled 
with company and lights. 

Sara Davenal waited and waited in 
the down-stairs room. She had taken 
off her things and made herself at 
home : her dress was of dark-blue 
silk, the bands of her brown hair 
were smooth and silken, and excite- 
ment had brought a color to her 
dieeks. The tea was on the table 
in readiness, with a cold fowl and 
tongue, thoughtfully ordered to be 
provided by Miss Davenal. 

Five o’clock ; half-past five ; six 
o’clock ; half-past six ; seven o’clock ; 
and still they had not come. Sara 
grew impatient ; it is no use to deny 
it, and blamed them for want of punc- 
tuality. They had not bargained for 
her feverish longing. 

She stood at the window, looking 
still, as she had done since five o’clock. 
It had grown into night since she 
stood there ; would have grown to 
dark but for the brilliant moon that 
lighted the heavens. A servant came 
in. 

Shall I bring lights, miss ?” 

“ Not yet. I want to watch for the 
train !” 

The maid retired. Sara waited on. 
Waited and waited, until she felt sure 
that it must be half-past seven : but 
then she 'was counting time by her 
own impatience, not by the clock. 
Her eyes began to grow weary with 
the intense and incessant gaze at the 
station, and she could see a good 
many people standing at its entrance 
in the moonlight, stragglers no doubt 
waiting for the train, wondering, like 
herself, that it was not in, and what 
had become of it. 

As she thus stood, there was a loud 
ring at the door-bell. Sara flew into 
the hall in glee : thinking how stupid 
she must have been not to observe 
them crossing the bridge round by 
the lines ; flew into the hall, and was 
met by her aunt. 

Miss Davenal ! when she had ex- 
pected the bridegroom and bride ! 
But Sara had to make the best of it, 
and she did so in her pleasing, grace- 


ful manner, drawing her aunt in by 
the hand to the dark room. 

They have not come yet. Aunt 
Bettina.” 

“ Whatever’s the meaning of this 
was the surprised question of Miss 
Davenal. All in the dark I And 
where are they ?” 

'' They have not come yet,” re- 
peated Sara. “ Bring the lights,” she 
added in a low voice to tha servant. 

“ Not come ! Where are they 
stopping ?” 

The train is not in. Aunt Bettina.” 

** The what’s not in ?” 

The train.” 

Why, what has come to it ?” 

Miss Bettina, all amazed, and 
scarcely believing the information, 
went hastily to the window, and 
looked towards the station. At that 
moment the other servant, Dorcas, 
came into the room. She was not a 
stranger to the family, having once 
lived with Miss Davenal, before that 
lady took up her abode 'with her 
brother. Dorcas was getting on to 
be middle-aged, a sensible-looking 
women, with a turned-up nose and 
reddish hair. 

Miss Sara,” she whispered, they 
are saying there’s been an accident to 
the train.” 

Sara Davenal’s heart seemed to 
stand still, and then bound on again 
as if it would break its bounds; 

Who says it ?” she gasped. 

saw the folks standing about, 
and talking one to the other ; so -T 
opened my kitchen winder, and askt.^^ 
what was amiss, and they said the 
seven o’clock train was not in, that it 
had met with an accident. Miss 
Sara — ” 

Bilt Miss Sara had turned from 
her. Silently snatching her shawl 
and bonnet from the sofa where she 
had laid them, she quitted the room, 
the unconscious Miss Davenal stand- 
ing yet at the window. Dorcas fol- 
lowed her, and, by the lights that 
were now being carried in, she saw 
how white she looked. 

^‘Miss Sara, I was about to say 


OSWALD CRAY. 


that it may not be true,” continued 
Dorcas, as Sara hastily flung on her 
things. I don’t think it is : there’d 
be more uproar at the station if any 
news of that sort had been brought 
. in.” 

I am going over to see ; I cannot 
remain in this suspense. Not go by 
myself?” she repeated, in reply. to 
the woman’s remonstrance; ^‘non- 
sense, Dorcas ! Everybody knows 
me : I am Dr. Davenal’s daughter. 
You stay with my Aunt Bettina, and 
be sure don’t alarm her if you can 
help it.” 

Pulling the door open with her own 
hand, she passed under the red light 
of Mr. Cray’s professional lamp, and 
hastened by the side-path and the 
bridge round to the station. Her 
face was pale, her pulses were beat- 
ing. Sara Davenal had a quick im- 
agination, and all the horrors of acci- 
dents by rail that she had ever heard 
seemed to rise up before her. 

There was no impediment offered 
to her entering the station. Several 
persons were standing about, but 
iiiey did not appear to notice her, and 
she passed through the room where 
the tickets were given on to the 
platform. There she found herself in 
the midst of a crowd. Not a moving 
crowd, but a waiting crowd, whose 
faces were mostly turned one way — 
that by which the expected train 
ought to come. Sara saw a talkative 
porter, and got near him, a man she 
knew. 

“ Has there been an accident?” she 
asked. 

“ Well, miss, there’s nothing known 
‘ for certain. It’s odd where the train 
can be ; and if any thing has happened, 
it’s odder still that the telegraph 
haven’t brought word of it. re- 
member once she was half an hour 
late before.” 

“Who was?” asked Sara, bewil- 
dered. 

“This here seven o’clock train. 
’Twarn’t nothing wrong with her 
then : some of them bothering excur- 
sion trains had blocked up the line. 
I’d lay, miss, it’s the same thing to- 


79 

night. The doctor ain’t gone down 
the line, is he ?” 

“No, no. I am expecting my 
cousin and Mr. Cray.” 

“ It’ll be all right, miss. She won’t 
be long. We shall hear her steam 
directly. ” 

Somewhat reassured, Sara turned, 
and was pushing her way through the 
throng, wishing to get clear of it, 
when she found herself a sort of 
prisoner. A gentleman had placed 
his arm before her, and looking up in 
the moonlight she discerned the fea- 
tures of Oswald Cray. Her heart"* 
gave a great bound of satisfaction, of 
love, and she almost caught at his pro- 
tecting arms. 


CHAPTER X. 

WAITING FOR NEWS. 

It was a curious and exciting scene. 
The station raising its imposing height 
to the night sky, so blue and beautiful ; 
the crowd gathered there unnaturally 
still, in the intensity of awed expecta- 
tion ; the lights and bustle of the town 
not far away ; the noiseless tread of 
the porters, as they moved restlessly 
in their suspense ; — all made a pain- 
fully interesting picture in the bright 
moonlight. 

Oswald Cray was waiting for the 
train. It was the one he intended to 
depart by. He drew Sara away from ^ 
the throng, and gave her his arm 
Her heart was beating still at the 
consciousness of his presence, her 
whole frame had thrilled to the touch 
of his hand. 

“ Is there danger, do you fear ?” 
she whispered. 

“No, I trust not. I think not. 
Were any thing wrong, the telegraph 
would have brought the news. It 
must be some obstruction on the 
line.” 

Sara’s fear faded away. She had 
confidence in him. If he, so ex- 
perienced, the line’s own engineer 


80 


OSWALD CRAY. 


saw no cause for dread, why should 
she ? Perhaps she could not quite 
banish one little corner of doubt in 
her heart ; perhaps Mr. Oswald Cray 
might have some slight corner of fear 
himself, which he did not deem it ex- 
pedient to impart to her. 

Did you get frightened, Sara 
he asked, as they walked slowly to 
and fro in the moonlight. 

was at the Abbey waiting for 
them, and Dorcas, one of their new 
servants, came to me and said people 
were saying in the street that there 
had been an accident. I was very 
much frightened, and came away, ran 
away, I may say,’’ she added, smiling, 

without saying any thing to Aunt 
Bettina.” 

Is she at the Abbey ?” 

She has just come. She expected 
they had returned.” 

‘‘ I fear Lady Oswald is waiting for 
this train at Hildon,” he remarked. 

She will not like the delay.” 

Indeed I Lady Oswald at Hil- 
don !” 

He explained to her how it was : 
that Lady Oswald had gone to Mr. 
Low’s, and was not yet back. Did 
you know that I called at your house 
this afternoon ?” he asked. 

she said, lifting her head. 

Did you call ?” 

It was about five o’clock. I have 
been very busy all day, but I managed 
to get a minute. You were out, Neal 
said, and the doctor was out, only 
Miss Davenal at home, so I did not 
go in.” 

“ I had come down to the Abbey,” 
said Sara. I thought they might 
arrive by an earlier train than this. 
Are you obliged to go back to Lon- 
don to-night ?” 

Quite obliged, if the train shall ar- 
rive to take me. What’s that ?” 

Some stir was discernible in the 
throng. Oswald Cray held his breath, 
listening for any sound that might in- 
dicate the approach of the train ; but 
in the distance he could hear nothing, 
and the stir, caused perhaps only by 
the restlessness of waiting, died away. 
They paced on again. 


“Since I saw you, Sara, I have 
had an offer made me of going 
abroad.” 

“ To stay long ?” she quickly asked. 
“ Where to ?” 

“ To stay a long while, had I ac- 
cepted it ; perhaps for life. In a 
pecuniary point of view the change 
would have been an advantageous 
one : it would have given me a position 
at once. But the climate is shocking. 
So I declined.” 

“ Oh, I am glad !” she involuntarily 
said. “ You should not run any of 
those risks.” 

“I did not hesitate on my own 
score. At least, I am not sure that I 
should have hesitated, but I really did 
not think of myself at all in the mat- 
ter. I did not get so far. I should 
not like to have gone out alone, Sara ! 
and I felt that I had no right to ex- 
pose another to these chances ; one 
whom I should then be bound to pro- 
tect and cherish, so far as man’s pro- 
tection goes, from all ill.” 

He spoke in what may be called 
general words, in a general tone, but 
it was impossible for Sara to misunder- 
stand him. Every pulse within her 
beat in answer, quietly as she con- 
tinued to walk, calmly as her eyes 
rested straight before her. She knew 
it was his intention not to speak 
openly, until he could speak to some 
purpose : and she thought ho was 
right. 

_ “ So I resolved to continue where I 
am, and plod on diligently,” he con- 
tinued. “Advancement, though more 
slow, will be sure. Do you think I 
did right ?” 

“ Quite right, quite right,” she mur- 
mured. And, had they been speaking 
without reserve to each other, she 
might have added, “Papa would not 
like me to go abroad.” 

A silence ensued. They pace to- 
gether in that quiet spot away from 
the busy crowd, the silvery moonlight 
above, the pure passion of love’s first 
dream filling their hearts within. No 
need of words : the conscious presence 
of each was all in all. 

“Where can this train be!” ex* 


OSWALD CRAY. 


81 


claimed Oswald at length, breaking 
the charm of the silence. 

Almost as the words left his lips, 
one of the porters came hurriedly up, 
tmi«hing his hat as he spoke. 

There has been a mistake in the 
telegraph-room, sir. Leastwise, some 
bungle. The train was telegraphed 
from Hildon.” 

A moment’s startled pause on the 
part of Oswald Cray. 

It was told to me positively that 
tbe train had not left. Barker 

I know, sir ; we all understood it 
«o. But James Eales is come back 
now, and he says we misunderstood 
him : that the train was telegraphed 
at tlie proper time. There’s an acci- 
dent, sir, for certain ; and it’s between 
this and Hildon.” 

The man touched his hat again, and 
retreated. Oswald Cray turned to his 
companion. 

I must leave you for a few min- 
ntee^ Sara, while I inquire into this.” 

Oswald, I don’t quite understand. 
What did he imply ? — that if a tele- 
graphic message had come, there must 
necessarily be an accident ?” 

I will be back to you soon,” he 
answered, unwilling to say more. I 
think there must be a mistake. Stay 
here quietly, away from the crowd.” 

Giving no further satisfaction to her 
fears — indeed he could not give it — he 
walked hastily to the small room used 
as the telegraph office. The news 
which the porter had brought to him 
was spreading elsewhere, and the en- 
trance to it was blocked up with an 
•Qger throng. He began to work his 
way through. 

‘‘By your leave, by your leave, 
good people.” And they drew aside 
to as to give room for him to pass 
when they saw who it was. Mr. 
Oswald Cray’s right of authority, as 
being superior to that of any at the 
Btation, was known and recognized. 

The telegraph clerk was a young 
mean named James Eales. It was his 
duty to receive th? messages, and in 
due course he ought tc^have received 
^e one from Hildon, signifying that 
ftiQ ^pected train (called in familiar 

6 


terms at Hallingham the seven o’clock 
train, although it came in five minutes 
sooner,) had duly quitted Hildon. 
This message was due somewhere 
about twenty-three minutes to seven, 
and it came this evening as usual, 
quite punctually. No sooner had it 
been received, than James Eales, who 
wanted to absent himself for a short 
while on an errand to the town, asked 
one of the men to take his place. 
Other messages might be expected 
relating to the trains, not to speak of 
private messages, always liable to 
come : and the man took his place 
accordingly. As Eales was going out, 
the man, whose name was Williams, 
called after him to know whether the 
train was signalled. Eales thought 
he meant the down-train, whose signal 
was nearly due, and replied, “No, not 
yet.” But in point of fact, the man 
had alluded to the up-train from Hil- 
don, which had been signalled. That 
man was an accurate time-keeper ; it 
wanted two or three minutes yet to 
the signalling of the, down-train, and 
he would not have been likely, from 
this very accuracy, to inquire whether 
that message had come, it not being 
due. Eales, who did not possess the 
like innate accuracy, and was besides 
in a hurry to depart, confused tbe 
question, and took it to allude to 
the down-train. It is through these 
mistakes, which are caused half by 
carelessness, half by what may be 
almost called unavoidable misappre- 
hension, that accidents occur. It did 
not lead to the accident in this case, 
but it has led to many a one. Wil- 
liams ought to have said, “ Is the up- 
train signalled ?” Saying what he did 
say, “ Is the train signalled ?” Eales 
should 1 ave answered, “ The up-train 
is signalled ; not the down.” 

Williams sat down to the desk or 
bureau, Ihe telegraph indicator being 
in front of him, above his head. Pre- 
cisely to time the down telegraph came, 
a confirmation, it may almost be said, 
of the mistake. Williams noted it, 
and wondered what the up-train was 
about that its signal did not likewise 
comq. After seven o’clock came and 


82 


OSWALD CRAY. 


passed, and the up-train did not arrive, 
the station-master, who had been en- 
joying a little recreative gossip on his 
o\vTi score, and not been attending to 
his duties quite as closely as he might 
have done, made his appearance in the 
telegraph office. 

“ Where’s James Eales he de- 
manded. 

Williams explained. He had step- 
ped out on an errand, and he, Wil- 
liams, was taking his place. The 
station-master made no demur to this : 
Williams was as capable as Eales, and 
often worked the telegraph. 

** Has the up-train been signalled 
from Hildon 

‘'No, sir, it has not been signalled 
for certain,” was the reply of Wil- 
liams. “ Eales told me that the sig- 
nal had not come when he left, and I 
am sure it has not come since.” 

“ AYhere can it be ?” exclaimed the 
station-master. “ I suppose some of 
those monster excursion trains are 
blocking up the line somewhere.” 

A consolatory conclusion, quite do- 
ing away with . uneasiness or fear. 
The station-master promulgated the 
news that the train had not been 
signalled from Hildon, together with 
his own suggestive idea of the of- 
fending excursion trains. He told Mr. 
Oswald Cray it had not been signalled, 
and he told others ; therefore the of- 
ficials were perfectly at their ease 
upon the point, whatever the assem- 
bled crowd might be. 

It was just five-and-twenty minutes 
past seven when Eales returned. He 
had stayed longer than he had in- 
tended, and he dashed into his office 
head foremost, catching a glimpse of 
the crowd on the platform, now quickly 
increasing. 

“What do they want, that lot?” 
he cried to Williams. “ Is any thing 
wrong ?” 

“ They are waiting for the up-train. 
It’s preciously behind time to-night, 
and I suppose some of them are 
alarmed — have got friends in it, may 
be.” 

“ What up-train ?” asked Eales. 

1 


“ The seven o’clock iip-train to Lon- 
don.” 

Eales stood confounded. 

“ Why, is that not come up ? An 
accident must have happened.” 

“ Not obliged to,” coolly returned 
Williams. “ It’s kept back by the ex- 
cursion trains, most likely.” 

“ There are no excursion trains to- 
day between this and Hildon,” quickly 
observed Eales. 

“ It has not got so far yet. It has 
not passed Hildon.” 

“ It has passed Hildon,” replied 
Eales. “ It passed at its proper time, 
and was signalled up.” 

Williams turned and stared at Eales 
with all his might. 

“ Who says it has been signalled 
up ?” 

“ Who says it I Why, I say it. I 
got the signal as usual.” 

“ Then how came you to tell me 
you hadn’t had it?” asked Williams. 

“ I never told you so.” 

“ You did. You’ll say black’s white 
next. It was the only question I 
asked you — whether the up-train had 
been signalled, and you replied it had 
not been.” 

“ You said the down train ; you 
never said the up.” 

“ I meant the up. It’s not likely 
I should ask whether the down train 
was signalled, that wasn’t near due 1 
You have done a pretty thing I” 

How long they might have contin- 
ued to dispute, one seeking to lay the 
blame upon the other, it is impossible 
to say. But at that moment the sta- 
tion-master came in again, and the 
mistake was made known, to him and 
to others. The train had left Hildon 
at its proper time, and therefore th® 
delay, whatever might be its cause, lay 
very near to them. In the six miles 
of rail intervening between Halling- 
ham and Hildon, the train must be on 
some spot of it. 

That an accident of some nature 
had taken place, the most sanguine 
could now only believe, and a whole 
shower of verbal missiles was hurled 
upon the two men, Eales and Wil- 


OSWALD CRAY. 


83 


liams, who did nothing hut retort 
on each other. Each firmly regard- 
ed the other as being alone in fault : 
an impartial judge would have said 
they were equally culpable. Ex- 
tricating himself from the confusion, 
Mr. Oswald Cray returned to Sara. 
She looked at him with questioning 
eyes, her heart shrinking : that hub- 
bub in the station had re-awakened 
her fears. He quietly placed her hand 
within his arm, and began to pace as 
before. 

“ I find things do not look quite so 
well as we fancied — ” 

There has been an accident,’^ she 
interrupted. Do not hide it from 
me, Oswald V' 

He lightly laid his other hand on 
hers, an assurance of his truth. 

I will hide nothing from you, my 
dearest,” and the never-yet-used term 
of endearment seemed to slip from 
him involuntarily, in the mementos 
need that he should soothe her. “We 
have not heard that there is an acci- 
dent, for no tidings of any sort have 
come up ; but the train, it seems, did 
leave Hildon at its usual time, and 
something must therefore have oc- 
curred to delay it.” 

A deep, sobbing sigh nearly broke 
from her, but she coughed it down. 

“Do not meet trouble half way,” 
he said, in a lighter tone. “ It does 
not follow that an accident, in the 
popular sense of the term, must have 
occurred, because the train is not up. 
The engine may have broken down 
and be unable to come on, but the 
passengers may be as safe and as well 
as we are. There’s no doubt the en- 
gine is disabled, or it would have 
come on for assistance.” 

“ Assistance for the wounded ?” she 
quickly rejoined. 

“Assistance that may be wanted 
in any way. The telegraph is at 
work to stop all trains, and some of 
us are going down — ” 

It was the last collected word they 
were enabled to speak. The news 
had spread in the town, and the af- 
frighted people were coming up in 
shoals. News, at the best, loses 


nothing in carrying, and the delay 
was magnified into a dreadful acci* 
dent, with half the train killed. In 
the midst of it, the guard of the miss- 
ing train arrived, flying up the line as 
if for his life, and carrying a lantern. 

The engine had run off the line 
on to the bank, and turned over, A 
few of the passengers were injured, 
but he thought not many ; some of 
them were walking on, the field way. 
It had occurred about midway be- 
tween the two stations, a little nearer 
to Hallingham than to the other. An 
engine was wanted to bring on the 
train, and it might be as well if a 
doctor or two went down. 

This was the climax for the af- 
frighted crowd, and those who had 
relatives in the train seemed to well 
nigh lose their senses. A scene of 
inextricable confusion ensued. Some 
were restrained by force from jumping 
on the line and setting off to the 
scene of accident; some strove to 
get upon the carriage and engine 
about to start for it. Order was re- 
stored with great difficulty, and the 
carriage and engine rescued from the 
invaders, who then quitted the sta- 
tion, and set off to run to the scene 
through the same fields that, as the 
guard said, passengers were advan- 
cing. 

Two medical men, who had been 
hastily obtained, Mr. Oswald Cray, 
and sundry officials of the line, took 
their seats in the carriage, to be con- 
veyed to the spot. The engine had 
given its first puff, and was snorting 
off, when a loud shout arrested it. 

“ Stop I stop ! One single mo- 
ment ! Here’s Dr. Davenal !” 

His name, for those poor wounded 
ones, was a tower of strength, worth 
all the rest of the surgical skill in 
Hallingham, and he was pulled into 
the carriage, having caught a glimpse 
of the white 15ace of his daughter 
outside the throng. Sara, terrified 
and bewildered, wondering wbat she 
should d6 next, was suddenly pounced 
upon by Miss Davenal. 

“You naughty girl I What on 
earth can you be doing here ?” 


84 


OSWALD CRAY. 


Ob, Aunt Bettina, there has been 
an accident to the train I Caroline 
and Mr. Cray are sure to be in it.” 

'' Caroline and Mr. Cray are what 
cried out Miss Bettina. 

I fear they are in the train. 
There has been an accident between 
here and Hildon. An engine has 
just gone down with assistance.” 

I don^t want to know about en- 
gines,” returned Miss Davenal, who 
had not understood one word in ten. 

ask what you do here alone ? 
Caroline and Mr. Cray can come home, 
I suppose, without your waiting for 
them in this public manner. What 
would your papa say if he saw 
you ?” 

'' Papa has seen me,” replied Sara. 

Papa has just come up to the sta- 
tion, and is gone down with the en- 
gine.” 

Gone down with what engine ? 
What do you mean ?” 

•Sara put her lips clos!? to Miss 
Davenars ear. 

Pa^^s gone down the line with 
some more gentlemen, to see about 
the wounded.” 

“ Wounded !” shrieked Miss Bet- 
tina. Has there been an accident ? 
Who’s wounded ? Caroline and Mr. 
Crjy ?” 

Wo don’t know yet, aunt.” And 
in the best way that she could, Sara 
strove to make the case comprehensi- 
ble to her aunt. Miss Davenal under- 
stood at last, and was somewhat mol- 
lified. 

' Sara, I am not very angry with 
you now. I might have stopped 
myself. An accident to the train, 
and the doctor’s gone down ! Oh I 
those dreadful railways !” 

A little longer of suspense, and 
then the passengers began to arrive. 
After the shock and fright, it bad 
seemed safer to many of them to walk 
the three miles of distance, than to 
trust to the rail again and another 
«o^ne. The path fields were dry, 
and it was a pleasant walk by moon- 
light. Miss Bettina, whose eyes were 
as quick as her hearing was dull, was 


the first to recognize Mrs. Cray 
amidst them. 

Caroline burst into tears as they 
laid hold of her, and Sara’s heart 
began to sink. But the tears were 
only the effect of the fright and ex- 
citement she had gone through. She 
could give no clear account of the 
accident or what it had brought forth. 
All she knew was that there was 
great banging and bumping of the 
carriage she was in, but it was not 
overturned. Two other carriages 
were, and the engine was lying on its 
side with all the steam coming out of 
it. She scrambled up the bank in 
her terror, as did most of the passen- 
gers, and came on with them. 

And Mark ?” asked Sara, scarcely 
daring to put the question. 

^'.Mark! He stayed to look after 
the wounded,” was her reply. He 
said he thought there was nobody 
seriously hurt. At any rate, there are 
no lives lost.” 

Sara’s heart breathed a word of 
thankfulness. 

‘'Did you see Lady Oswald?” she 
asked. “ She went to Hildon this 
afternoon, and Mr. Oswald Cray 
thought she must be in this train 
returning.” 

“I did not see her,” replied Mrs. 
Cray. “ Lady Oswald in the train t 
I thought she never travelled by 
rail. ” 

“ She did this afternoon. One ot 
her carriage-horses is ill. How thank- 
ful I How thankful we must all bo 
that it is no worse !” concluded Sara 
Davenal. 

“ Well, this is a fine ending to youi 
wedding jaunt!” exclaimed Miss Bet- 
tina. “What about your luggage, 
Caroline ? Is it safe ?” 

“As if we gave a thought to our 
luggage. Aunt Bettina I When peo- 
ple’s lives are at stake they can’t 
think of their luggage.” 

“ Nor care either, perhaps,” sharply 
answered Miss Bettina, who, for a 
wonder, had caught the words. “ It 
may be lying soused in the engine- 
water, for all you know !” 


OSWALD ORA I. 


85 


I dare say it is,” equably returned 
Caroline. “It was in the van next 
the engine.” 

But the full report had to come up 
yet ; and the excited crowd stopped on. 

I 

I CHAPTEE XL 

PAIN. 

Clear and distinct lay the lines of 
rail in the cold moonlight. It was a 
straight bit of line there, without 
curve or bend, rise or incline ; and 
why the engine should have gone off 
the rails remained to be proved. It 
was lying on its side, the steam es- 
caping as from a fizzing, hissing fur- 
nace. The luggage van was over- 
turned and its contents were scattered ; 
and two carriages were overturned 
also — a second-class, which had been 
next the van, and a first-class which 
followed it. 

But now, as good Providence willed 
it, in that second-class carriage there 
had only been three passengers. The 
train was not a crowded one, and 
people don’t travel close to the engine 
as a matter of taste. Of these three 
passengers, two had thrown them- 
selves flat on the floor of the carriage 
between the seats, and escaped with- 
out injury; the other had a broken 
arm and a bruised head, not of much 
moment. The first-class carriage was 
more fully occupied, and several of 
the passengers, though not fatally, 
were seriously hurt. And of the 
driver and stoker : the one had saved 
himself by leaping from his engine, 
the other was flung to a distance, and 
lay there as he fell. 

Mrs. Cray had told her aunt and 
cousin, when she afterwards met them 
at Hallingham, that her husband had 
remained behind to tend the wounded. 
The first face that Mr. Cray dis- 
tinguished in the moonlight, lying 
amidst the debris of the overturned 
first-class carriage, was that of Lady 
Oswald ; and so completely astonished 


was he to see it, that he thought 
either his eyes or the moon must be 
playing him false. He and Caroline 
had been in a carnage almost at the 
end of the train, consequently he 
not seen her at the Hildor station. 
And he had believed that Lady Os- 
wald, of all persons, would have been 
the last to attempt railway travelling, 
so much was she opposed to rails and 
trains in general. Groaning and 
moaning by her side was Parkins ; Mr. 
Cray could therefore doubt no longer. 

With assistance, these • passengers 
were extricated and laid upon the 
bank. Their injuries were unequal : 
some, after the first shock, could walk 
and talk, some could do neither; 
while the first grumbled and com- 
plained of their bruises and abrasions, 
the last lay still, except for groaning. 
The only perfectly quiet one was 
Lady Oswald : she lay with her pale 
face upturned to the moonlight, her 
eyes closed. It was natural perhaps 
that Mark Cray should first turn his 
attention to her. A gentleman, one of 
the passengers, asked if she was dead. 

“ No,” said Mark ; “ she has only 
fainted. Parkins, suppose you get 
up and try if you can walk. I’m sure 
you can’t be hurt if you are able to 
make that noise. That engine ap- 
pears not to be over steady. Take 
care it does not raise itself again, and 
come puffing off this way.” 

Parkins, not detecting the rwsc, 
started up with a shriek, and stood 
rubbing herself all over. “ I think 
I’m killed,” she cried ; I don’t be- 
lieve I have got a whole bone in me.” 

“ I’ll see by-and-by,” said Mr. Cray. 
“ Meanwhile come and help your lady. 
I want her bonnet and cap untied.” 

Parkins limped to the spot stiffly 
with many groans, but wonderfully 
well, considering the belief she had 
just expressed. At the same mo- 
ment, some one came up with water, 
procured from somewhqre near, and 
the driver, who had just come to his 
legs, brought a lamp. The lamp was 
held to Lady Oswald’s face, and some 
of the water poured into her mouth. 
Between the two she opened her eyes. 


86 


OSWALD CRAY. 


“What’s the matter?” she asked. 
“ Where am I ?” 

“ She’s all right,” whispered Mr. 
Cray, his warm tone proving that he 
had not previously felt so assured of 
the fact. “ Has anybody got a drop 
of brandy ?” he called out to the pas- 
sengers, who yet stayed at the scene. 

“ Goodness me ! where am I ?” cried 
Lady Oswald, with a faint shriek. 
“ Parkins, is that you ? What has 
happened ? Didn’t we get into the 
railway carriage ?” 

“But wd are out of it now, my 
lady,” cried Parkins, sobbing. “ There 
has been an awful upset, my lady, 
and I don’t know any thing more, ex- 
cept that it’s a mercy we are alive. ” 

“ An upset 1” repeated Lady Os- 
wald, who appeared to have no recol- 
lection whatever of the circumstances. 
“Is anybody hurt? Are you hurt, 
Parkins ?” 

“ Every bone in me is broke, my 
lady, if I may judge by the feel of 
’em. This comes of them sheds.” 

“ Be quiet, Parkins,” said Mr. Cray, 
who had succeeded in finding a wicker- 
cased bottle containing some brandy- 
and-water. “ Help me to raise your 
lady a little.” 

Parkins contrived to afford help in 
spite of the damaged bones, but the 
moment Lady Oswald was touched 
she shrieked out terribly. 

“ Let me alone ! let me alone ! Is 
that Mark Cray ? How kind you are 
to come to see after me, Mr. Cray! 
Did you come from Hallingham ?” 

“We were in the same train, Lady 
Oswald ; I and Caroline. I am very 
glad that it happened to be so.” 

“ To be sure ; I begin to remember : 
you were to return to-night. I — I 
feel very faint.” 

Mark succeeded in getting her to 
drink some brandy-and-water, but 
she positively refused to be touched, 
though she said she was in no pain. 
He thought she was exhausted, the 
effect of the shock, and left her to at- 
tend to other sufferers, who perhaps 
wanted his aid more than Lady Os- 
wald. 

Then, after a while, the carriage 


came up, bringing the help from Hal- 
lingham. Mark Cray saw Dr. Dave- 
nal with the greatest pleasure, and he 
took him at once towards Lady Os- 
wald. 

“Are many hurt?” inquired the 
doctor. 

“ Astonishingly few,” was the reply ; 
“ and the hurts are of a very minoi 
character, I fancy. A broken arm is 
about the worst.” 

“And what of Lady Oswald ?” 

“ I don’t think she’s hurt at all : 
she’s suffering from the shock, A 
little exhausted ; but that’s natural.” 

“ To a woman of her age such a 
shock is no light thing, Mark. How- 
ever, we must do the best we can ft>r 
everybody. ” 

“ There has been enough groaning 
— if that’s any thing to judge by,” 
said Mark ; “ groaning and complain- 
ing too.” 

“ Glad to hear it,” said the doctor. 
“ When people can complain, tl^ 
damage is not very extensive.” 

“ Parkins, for one, keeps protesting 
that every bone’s broken.. But she 
ran out of the way pretty quickly 
when I told her Ihe engine might 
start up again.” 

The doctor smiled, and they came 
up to Lady Oswald. Oswald Cray 
had found her out, and was sitting on 
the bank beside her. She spoke just 
a word or two to him, but seemed, as 
Mr. Cray had said, exhausted. Os- 
wald Cray rose to resign his place to 
Dr. Davenal, and he took his brothear 
aside. 

“ Is she much hurt, Mark ?” 

“ Oh, no,” replied Mark. “ It has 
shaken her, of course ; but she has 
been talking as fast as I can talk.” 

He spoke with singular confidence. 
In the first place, Mark Cray was nat- 
urally inclined to look on the bright 
side of things, to feel confident him- 
self, in the absence of any palpable 
grounds for doing so ; in the second, 
he did not think it at all mattered 
what information on the point was 
given to Oswald. 

Reassured upon the score of Lady 
Oswald, Oswald quitted Mark, and 


OSWALD CEAY. 


87 


went amidst the wounded. Proud 
man though he was accused of being, 
proud man though he was, never was 
there a tenderer heart, a softer hand, a 
'gentler voice for the sick and sujffering 
than his. All the patients appeared 
to have been attended to in some de- 
gree ; and they were in good hands 
now. Oswald halted by the side of 
the poor stoker, a swarthy, honest- 
faced man, who was moaning out his 
pain. 

What, is it you, Biggl” he said, 
recognizing the man. ‘‘I did not 
know you were back on this part of 
the line again.’’ 

'' I on’y come on it yesterday, sir. 
It’s just my luck.” 

Where are yoii hurt ?” 

I be scalded awful, sir. I never 
knew what pain was afore to-night. 
All my lower limbs is ” 

Take care I” shouted Oswald to a 
stupid fellow who was running along 
with a plank in his arms. Can’t 
you see there’s a man lying here ? 
What are you about ?” 

^‘About- my work,” was the rough 
reply, spoken in an insolent tone. It 
was one of the men just brought 
down, a workman from Hallingham 
station, and Oswald knew him well. 

What is that. Wells ?” he quietly 
asked. 

Wells looked round now, surprised 
at being addressed by name. He 
pretty nearly dropped his load in con- 
sternation when he recognized Mr. 
Oswald Cray. Pull as his hands 
were, he managed to jerk his hat from 
his head. 

I beg your pardon, I’m sure, sir. 
I thought it was nothing but some 
idler obstricting of me. One does get 
beset with idlers at these times, asking 
one all sorts of questions. I shouldn’t 
have answered that way, sir, if I’d 
knowed it was you.” 

Go on with your work : there’s no 
time to talk. And don’t blunder 
along again without looking where 
you are going.” 

‘‘One can’t see well in the dark, 

sir.” 

“ It’s not dark ; it is as light as it 


need be. Quite light enough for you 
to see your way. Do you call that 
bright moon nothing ?” 

“ He’d ha’ been right over my legs, 
but for you, sir,” murmured poor 
Bigg, the great drops of pain stand- 
ing out on his brow, black with his 
occupation. “ I don’t know how I 
be to bear this agony. That cursed 
engine ” 

“ Hush, Bigg,” interrupted Mr. 
Oswald Cray. 

Bigg groaned his contrition. 
“ Heaven forgive me ! I know it 
ain’t a right word for me to-night.” 

“ Heaven will help you to bear the 
pain if you will only let it,” said Os- 
wald. “There has been worse pain 
to bear even than yours, my poor 
fellow ; though I know how hard it is 
for you now to think so.” 

“It may be my death-blow, sir. 
And what’s to become o’ my wife and 
little uns ? Who’ll work for ’em ?” 

“Ho, no. Bigg. I hope it is not 
so bad as that. I do not think it is.” 

“If one might count by pain, 
sir ” 

“ Bigg, I can give you a little com- 
fort on that score,” interrupted Os- 
wald Cray. “A friend of mine was 
very dreadfully burnt, through his 
bedclothes catching fire. Awfully 
burnt : I don’t like, even at this dis- 
tance of time, to think of it. The 
next day I heard of it and went to see 
him. I am not a very good one to 
witness physical pain, and I remem- 
ber how I dreaded to witness his, and 
the spectacle which I was sure he 
would present He was a spectacle, 
poor fellow — but let that pass. To 
my great astonishment he saluted me 
heartily as I went in. ‘ Holloa, old 
friend 1’ were his words, noi only 
cheerfully but merrily spoken. I 
found that he did not suffer pain : had 
not felt any from the moment he was 
burnt In my ignorance, I set that 
down as a most favorable symptom, 
and felt sure he would get well very 
shortly. When I was leaving him, I 
met the doctor going in, and said how 
glad I was to find his patient so well. 

‘ Well I’ he exclaimed, ‘ why, what do 


88 


OSWALD CRAY. 


you judge by And I said — ^by his 
feeling no pain. ‘ That’s just it,’ the 
doctor observed : * if he only felt pain 
therb might be a chance for him. I 
wish I could hear him roar out with 
it.’ Now, Bigg,” Mr. Oswald Cray 
added, I am no surgeon, but I infer 
that the same theory must hold good 
in scalds as in burns : that your pain 
is as favorable a symptom as his want 
of it Avas unfavorable. Do not rebel 
at your pain again, my poor fellow ; 
rather bear it like a man. Were I 
scalded or buri>t, I think I should be 
thankful for the pain.” 

* ** He was burnt worse, may be, nor 
me, that there gentleman,” remarked 
Bigg, who had listened with interest. 

Ten times worse,” replied Oswald. 
^‘Yes, I may say ten times worse,” 
he emphatically repeated. Indeed, 
Bigg, I feel sure that yours is but a 
very slight hurt, in comparison with 
what it might have been : and I do 
not say this to you in the half-false 
light in which one speaks to a child 
to soothe it, but as one truthful man 
would speak to another.” 

God bless you, sir. My heart was 
a-failing of me sadly. Did he die, 
that there gentleman ?” 

He died at a week’s end : but 
there had been no hope of him from 
the first ; and there were also certain 
attendant circumstances in his case, 
apart from the injury, remarkably un- 
favorable. In a short while. Bigg, 
you’ll be on your legs again, as good 
a man as ever. I’ll ask Dr. Davenal 
to come and have a look at you.” 

The name of the far-famed surgeon 
• carried assurance in itself, and Bigg’s 
face lighted up with eagerness. 

Is Dr. Davenal here, sir ?” 

“ Yes. I’ll go and look for him.” 

At the moment that Oswald spoke. 
Dr. Davenal had left Lady Oswald 
and encountered Mr. Mark Cray. 
The latter, whose spirits were rather 
exalted that night, the effect probably 
of finding the injuries around him so 
slight, when he had looked out for all 
the terriblo calamities that flesh is 
heir to, not to speak of death, stopped 


to speak of Lady Oswald. And he 
spoke lightly. 

‘'Well, you don’t find her hurt, 
doctor ?” 

“I’ll tell you more about it Iot 
morrow, Mark.” 

Dr. DavenaPs tone was so very 
grave that Mark Cray stared. Be 
thought — Mark Cray almost thouglit 
that there was' a sh^e of reproof in 
it, meant for him. 

“I am sure she has no serious 
■ hurt,” he exclaimed. 

“Well, Mark, I can say nothing 
positively yet! In the state in which 
she is, and in tMs place, it is not easy 
to ascertain ; but I fear she has.^* 

“ My goodness !” cried Mark, con- 
scious that he was but the veriest 
tyro beside that man of skill, Richard 
Davenal, and feeling very small at the 
moment. “ What is the hurt, sir 
he asked in a loud tone. 

“ Hold your tongue about it,” said 
the doctor. “ Time enough to pro- 
claim it abroad when the fact has 
been ascertained that there is one.’^ 

Oswald Cray came up, having dis- 
tinguished the doctor in the moon- 
light. 

“ I wish you’d come and look at a 
poor fellow. Dr. Davenal,, who wants 
a word of cheering. A word of such 
from you, you know, sends the spirits 
up. You should have seen the man’s 
face lighten when I said you were 
here. ” 

“Who is it?” asked the doctor, 
turning off with alacrity. 

“ Poor Bigg, the fireman. You know 
him, I dare say. He is badly scalded 
and bruised.” 

“ Oh, his hurts are nothing,” slight- 
ingly spoke Mark Cray. “ He seems 
just one of those groaners who cry 
out at a touch of pain.” 

“ Mark,” said the doctor, stopping, 
“ allow me to tender you a word of 
advice — do not fall into that idea that 
nobody can, or ought, to feel pain ; or, 
if they feel it, that they ought not to 
show it. It is unnatural, untruthful ; 
and to my mind, particularly unbe- 
coming in a medical man. Pain to 


OSWALD CRAY. 


89 


some natures is all but an impossibility 
to bear ; it is all that can be imagined 
of agony : it is as if every moment of 
its endurance were that of death. The 
nervous organization is so sensitively 
delicate, that even a touch of pain, as 
you express it, which "most people 
would scarcely feel, is to them the 
acutest agony. As a surgeon and 
anatomist, you ought to know this.’^ 

''He^s only a fireman,’^ returned 
Mark. '' Nobody expects those rough 
fellows to be sensitive to pain.^^ 

Let him be a fireman or a water- 
man, he will feel it as I describe, if his 
frame is thus sensitively organized,^^ 
was the reply of Dr. Davenal, spoken 
firmly, if not sternly. ^‘Wbat has a 
man’s condition in life to do with it ? 
That won’t change his physical nature. 
A duke, sleeping on a bed of down, 
nurtured in refinement and luxury, 
may be so constituted that pain will 
be a mere flea-bite to him. Should he 
be destined to endure the worst that’s 
known to earth, he will, so to say, 
hardly feel it ; whereas this poor fire- 
man, inured to hard usage, to labor 
and privation, may be literally almost 
unable to bear it. For my own part, 
when I have to witness this distress- 
ing sensibility to pain, perhaps have 
to inflict it as a surgical necessity, I 
suffer half as much as the patient does, 
for I know what it is to him. Don’t 
affect to ridicule pain again, Mark.” 

Mark Cray looked vexed, annoyed. 
But every syllable that had fallen from 
Dr. Davenal’s lips had found its echo 
in the heart of Oswald Cray. If there 
was one quality he admired beyond 
all else, it was sincere open truthful- 
ness : and to Oswald’s mind there was 
an affectation, a want of sincerity, in 
the mocking expressions, the shallow 
opinions, so much in fashion in the 
present day. There had been a hollow 
carelessness in Mark’s tone when he 
ridiculed the notion of the poor stoker’s 
possessing a sensitiveness to pain, just 
as if the man had no right to possess 
it. 

‘‘Well, Bigg, and so you must get 
tossed in this upset !” began the doc- 


tor, cheerfully. ‘‘ Oh ! you’ll do well, 
by the look of your face ; we shall 
soon have you on the engine again. 
Let’s get a sight of this grand damage. 
Who has got a lantern ?” 

It was a bad scald ; a shoi^king 
scald — there was no question of it] 
and there was much injury by bruises; 
but Dr. Davenal spoke the simple 
truth when he assured the man that 
the hurts were not dangerous. 

“ Keep up your heart. Bigg. In an 
hour’s time you will be in the infirm- 
ary, properly attended to. You’ll soon 
get over this.” 

“ I dun’ know as I can live through 
the pain, sir,” was the wailing answer, 

“ Ay, it’s bad. But when we have 
got the proper remedies on, you won’t 
feel it as you do now. Bigg, I ence 
scalded my leg badly — at least some- 
body did it for me — and I remember 
the pain to this day ; so, my poor 
fellow, I can tell what yours is. ” 

‘‘Mr. Cray said, sir, I oughtn’t to 
feel no pain from a hurt like this, he 
did. It sounded hard like, for the 
pain is awful.” 

“ Mr. Cray knows you would be 
better if you tried not to feel the pain, 
not to feel it so acutely. He is a 
doctor, you know. Bigg, and sees 
worse hurts than yours every day of 
his life.” 

“ I’d like to ask you, sir, when I 
shall be well — if you can tell me. I 
have got a wife and children, sir • and 
she’s sick just now, and can’t work for 
’em.” 

“We’ll get you up again in three 
weeks,” said Dr. Davenal, hopefully, 
as he hastened away to another suf^ 
ferer, groaning at a distance. 

The term seemed long to the man ; 
it seemed almost to startle him : be 
was thinking of his helpless wife and 
children. 

“ Three weeks I” he repeated, with 
a moan. “ Three weeks, and nobody 
to help ’em, and me laid down, in^ 
capable !” 

“ Think how much worse it migl^ 
be. Bigg I” said Mr. Oswald Cray, 
wishing to get the man to look at his 


90 


OSWALD CRAY. 


misfortune in a more cheerful spirit. 
** Suppose Dr. Davenal had said three 
months 

“ Then, as good he’d said, sir, as I 
should never be up again.” 

Do you think so ? I don’t. It is 
a long while to be confined by illness, 
three months, and to you it seems, no 
doubt, very long indeed ; but it is not 
60 much out of a man’s life. I knew 
one who was ill for three years, and 
got up again. That would be worse, 
Bigg.” 

A jy sir, it would be. I haven’t 
got just my right thoughts to-night, 
what with the pain that’s racking me, 
and what with trouble about my wife 
and little ’uns.” 

‘‘ Don’t trouble about them, Bigg,” 
was the considerate answer. They 
shall be taken care of until you can 
work for them again. If the company 
won’t do it, I will.” 

A short while longer of confusion, 
of hasty clearance of the line, of sooth- 
ing medical aid — such aid as could be 
given in that inconvenient spot, where 
there was only the open bare ground 
for the sufferers to lie on, the moonlit 
sky to cover them — and the return to 
Hallingham was organized. The in- 
jured were lifted into the carriages and 
placed as well as circumstances per- 
mitted. Lady Oswald, w^ho shrieked 
out when they raised her, was laid at 
full length on a pile of rugs collected 
from the first-class compartments. 
The engine then started with its load, 
and steamed gently onwards. 

It appeared afterwards that the 
accident had been caused by the 
snapping of some part of the machin- 
ery of the engine. It was a very un- 
usual occurrence, and could neither 
have been foreseen nor prevented. 

The expectant crowd had not dis- 
persed when Hallingham was reached. 
Rich and poor, men and women, were 
alike gathered at the station. Even 
Miss Bettina Davenal retained her 
post, and Sara and Caroline were 
with her. 

The invalid train — it might surely 
be called one in a double sense — came 
slowly into the station. The platform 


had been cleared; none were allowed 
upon it, to obstruct the I'emoval of 
the sufferers from the train to the 
conveyances in which they would be 
transported to their homes, or to the 
infirmary, as the case might be. But, 
if the platform was denied them, the 
excited watchers made up for the dis- 
courtesy by blocking up the road and 
doors outside ; a motley group, pic- 
turesque enough in the fine moonlight 
night. 

Dr. Davenal, Mr. Cray, and the 
other medical men were occupied in 
superintending the removal of their 
patients, but Mr. Oswald Cray found 
his way to Miss Davenal, and gavso 
the good news that the injuries weno 
comparatively slight. A train for 
London was on the point of starting, 
and he was going by it. He con- 
trived to obtain a few words with 
Sara. There was no difficulty in 
passing to the platform now. 

*‘I wish I could have remained 
over to-morrow,” he observed to her. 

I should like to see and hear how 
all these poor people get on.” 

Are you sure you cannot remain ?” 

I am sure that I ought not. You 
have heard me speak of Frank Allic- 
ter, Sara ?” 

Often. The young Scotchman 
who was with you at Bracknell and 
Street’s for so many years.” 

^‘We were articled together. He 
has become very ill lately, and — and 
the firm has not behaved quite well to 
him. I have no voice in that part of 
its economy, or this should never have 
been.” 

What did they do ?” inquired 
Sara. 

He has not got on as I have. 
Still he held a tolerably fair post in 
the house ; but his health failed, and 
he had to absent himself. Mr. Street 
found out how ill he was, came to the 
conclusion that he’d be of no use to us 
again, and wrote him his dismissal. 
I thought it very hard; and he— 
he ” 

*^Yes?” said Sara, eagerly interfested. 

*^He found it harder than he could 
bear. It put the finishing stroke to 


OSWALD CRAY. 


91 


his illness, and I don’t think he will 
rally. He has no relatives near, few 
friends, so I see him as often as I can, 
and gave him a faithful promise to 
spend to-morrow with him. Time’s 
up, and the guard’s impatient, I 
see.” 

^^Does the guard know you are 
going ?” 

Yes. Don’t you see him looking 
round for me ? Fare you well, Sara. 
I may be down again in a day or 
two.” 

He had taken her hands for a mo- 
ment in both his as he stood before 
her. 

“ I trust you will get safe to town !” 
she whispered. 

‘‘Ay, indeed ! This night has proved 
to us that safety lies not with ourselves. 
God bless you, my dearest !” 

He crossed the platform and stepped 
into the carriage which the guard was 
holding open. The next moment the 
train was steaming out of the station 
— Sara Davenal looking after it with a 
lingering look, a heart at rest, as that 
sweet word of endearment rang its 
echoes on her ear. 


CHAPTER XIL 

A WHIM OF LADY OSWALD’S. 

/ 

The medical body, as a whole, i^ 
differently estimated by the world. 
Some look down upon it, others look 
up to it — their own position in the 
scale of society having no bearing or 
bias on the views of the estimators. 
It may be that a nobleman will bow 
to the wDrth and value of the physi- 
cian, will regard him as a benefactor 
of mankind, exercising that calling of 
all others most important to the wel- 
fare of humanity ; while a man very 
far down imtooSsDrld’s social ladder 
will despi^the ^ctor- wherever he 
sec him/ ^ 

It is , possible that each has in a 
degreo^' cause for this, so far as he 
judges by his own experience. The 


one may have been brought in contact 
with that perfect surgeon — and there 
are many such — whose peculiar gifts 
for his calling were bestowed upon 
him by the Divine will ; he with the 
lion’s heart and woman’s hand, whose 
success, born of patience, courage, 
judgment, experience, has become by 
God’s blessing an assured fact. A 
man who has brought all the grand 
discoveries of earthly science to his 
aid and help in the study of his art ; 
who has watched Nature day by day, 
and mastered her intricacies ; who 
has, in fact, attained to that perfection 
in skill which induces the involuntary 
remark to break from us — We shall 
never see his fellow ! Before such a 
man as this, as I look upon it, tha 
world should bow. We have no bene- 
factor greater than he. The highest 
honors of the land should be open to 
him ; all that we can give of respect 
and admiration should be his. 

But there is a reverse side to tho 
picture. There is tho man who has 
gone into the profession without apti 
tude for it, who has made it his, al- 
though positively incapable of properly 
learning it or exercising it. He may 
have acquired the right to use all the 
empty distinguishing letters attaching 
to it, and tack them after his name on 
all convenient occasions, inscribe them 
in staring characters on his very door- 
posts — M.D., M.R.C.S., — as many 
more as there may be to get ; but, foi 
all that, he is less capable of exercis- 
ing the art than you or I. His whole 
career is one terrible mistake. He kills 
more patients than he cures ; slaying 
them, drenching them to death, with 
that most pitiful and fatal of all weap- 
ons — ignorance. It may not be his 
fault, in one sense : he does his best • 
but he has embraced a calling foi 
which Nature did not fit him. Ht 
goes on in his career, it is true, anc 
his poor patients suffer. More igno 
rant, of necessity, than he is — for ii 
all that relates to the healing art, wc 
are, take us as a whole, lamentably 
deficient — they can only blindly resign 
themselves into his hands ; and when 
they find that there, is no restored 


92 


OSWALD CRAY. 


f 


health for them, that they get worse 
rather than better, they blame the ob- 
stinacy of the malady, not the treat- 
ment. Upon his own mind, mean- 
while, there rests an ever-perpetual 
sense of failure, irritating his temper, 
rendering his treatment experimental 
and uncertain. Some cannot see 
where the fault lies — in their own in- 
capacity ; and if a man does see it, 
what then ? « He must go on and do 
his best ; he must be a doctor always ; 
it is his only means of living, and he 
is too old to take to another trade. 
Rely upon it there are more of these 
practitioners than the world suspects. 

Such a man as the first was Dr. 
Davenal ; such a man as the last was 
Mark Cray. But, that Mark was so. 
Dr. Davenal suspected not. Grave 
cases hitherto, during their short con- 
nection, had been treated by Dr. 
Davenal himself, and for ordinary ail- 
ments Mark did well enough. Heo 
could write a proper prescription 
when the liver was out of order, or 
bring a child through the measles ; 
he could treat old ladies with fanciful 
ailments to the very acme of perfec- 
tion. It is true Dr. Davenal had 
been once or twice rather surprised by 
downright wrong treatment on the 
part of Mark, but he had attributed it 
to inexperience. 

When other doctors could not cure, 
people flew to Dr. Davenal ; when 
there was a critical operation to be 
performed, involving life or death, 
Dr. Davenal was prayed to undertake 
it His practice, therefore, was of 
wide extent ; it was not confined to 
Hallingham and its vicinity, but ex- 
tended occasionally to the confines of 
the county. It was not, therefore, 
surprising that on the morning follow- 
ing the accident Dr. Davenal found 
himself called out at an early hour to 
the country on a case of dangerous 
emergency. And the illness was at 
Thoriidyke. 

He responded at once to the call. 
Never a prompter man than Richard 
Davenal. Roger had learned by ex- 
ample to be prompt also, and was 
ready with his carriage as soon as his 


master. The arrangements with re- 
gard to saving time were well organ- 
ized at Dr. DavenaPs. The bell com- 
municating from the house to the 
man’s rooms near the stables w^as 
made the means of conveying diffep- 
ent orders. If rung once, Roger was 
wanted in-doors to receive his orders 
by word of mouth ; if rung twice — 
and on those occasions they were al- 
w^ays sharp, imperative peals — Roger 
knew that the carriage was wanted at 
once, with all the speed that he could 
master. 

The calm, peaceful quiet of tlie 
Sabbath morn was lying on the 
streets of Hallingham as the doctor 
was driven through them. The shops 
Were all shut ; some of the private 
houses were not yet opened — ser- 
vants being apt to lie late on that 
morning. As they passed the town- 
hall and the market-place, so void of 
life then, the church clock struck 
eight, and the customary bells, giving 
tokhp of the future services of the 
day, broke forth in the clear air. 

Stop at the abbey, Roger,” said 
the doctor, as they neared it. 

The woman, Dorcas, was just open- 
ing the parlor shutters. She came 
to the door when she saw the carriage 
drawing up to it. 

“ I want to see your master, Dorcas. 
I suppose he’s up.” 

He’s up and out, sir,” was her 
reply. He has been gone about five 
minutes.” 

This answer caused the doctor to 
pause. It should 'be explained that 
when the train of sufferers arrived at 
the station the previous night. Lady 
Oswald had elected to be accompanied 
to her home by Mark Cray, not by 
Dr. Davenal. Whether she was ac- 
tuated by pure caprice ; whether by 
a better motive — ^the belief that she 
was not hurt so much as some other 
of the sufferers, and that Dr. Davenal’s 
skill would be morp^lfii^led by them ; 
or whether^^he i^ent ^dden liking 
she had im.en for^SIr. Cray swayed 
her then, cp.uld not be told : never 
would be told. She seemed to be 
a little revived at the end of the 


OSWALD CRAY. 


93 


t. 


journey, and she chose that Mark 
Gray should go home with her. 
Dr. Davenal had acquiesced, but he 
whispered a parting word to Mark. 
‘‘If there is an injury, I suspect it 
will be found in the ribs, Mark. Look 
well to it. If you want me, I am 
going on to the infirmary, and shall 
be at home afterwards.” 

But, as it appeared, the doctor had 
not been wanted. At any rate, Mark 
Cray had not sent for him. And he 
had stopped now to hear, if he could, 
Mark’s report. 

An upper window opened, and Mrs. 
Cra^, completely enveloped in a thick 
shawl, so that nothing could be seen 
of her but the tip of her nose, leaned 
out. 

“ Good-morning, Uncle Bichard.” 

*‘ Good-morning, my dear. I am 
glad to see you again. Can you 
come down for a minute ?” 

“No, I have not begun to dress. 
Did you want Mark ? He has gone 
to Lady Oswald’s.” 

“Ah, that’s what I wish to ask 
about. Did you hear Mark say how 
she was ? — whether there was any 
hurt ?” 

“ He said there was not. But for 
one thing, she kept fainting, and re- 
fused to be touched. At least I think 
he said so, something of that ; I was 
very sleepy when he got home ; it 
was one o’clock. I am sure he said 
she was not hurt to speak of.” 

“That’s all right, then,” said Dr. 
Davenal. 

“ You are out, betimes, Uncle Rich- 
ard,” resumed Caroline. “Are you 
gdipg far ?” 

“ To Thorndyke. Tell your husband 
he m\^t see my patients this morning, 
I shall not be back in time. Drive on, 
Roger.” 

“ Yery well,” said Caroline. “ Who’s 
ill at Thorndyke ?” 

But Dr. Davenal’s answer, if he 
gave one, wns lost in the distance, and 
never reached Caroline Cray’s ear. 

It was a singular coincidence — as 
was said by gossips afterwards — that 
one should be taken ill that day at 
ThQj;ndyke, and be in danger of death. 


It was not, however, one of the Os- 
wald family, but a visitor of Sir 
Philip’s, and it has nothing what^er 
to do with the story. It need not 
have been mentioned, save to explain 
what took Dr. Davenal from Hailing- 
ham on that critical day. 

Dr. Davenal found the patient alarm- 
ingly ill, in great need of medical help, 
and he had to remain at Thorndyke 
some hours. It was between two and 
three o’clock when he got back to 
Hallingham, and he ordered Roger bo 
drive at once to the infirmary. 

The doctor went in and saw his 
patients. The poor m-an Bigg, easier 
now than he had been the previous 
night, lay in a slumber ; the rest were 
going on well. One woman had gone. 
An inmate of the wards for some 
weeks past, her case, a very painful 
one, had baffled all skill, all remedy 5 
now she had gone to that better place 
where sickness and pain cannot enteR 
Dr. Davenal stood for some little time 
.conversing with the house surgeon, 
and then departed on foot to his home z 
he had dismissed his carriage when he 
entered the infirmary. 

As he was walking, he met an eager 
little fellow scuffling along, one who 
always walked very fast, with his 
head pushed out, as if he were in a 
desperate hurry. It was one of the 
infirmary pupils, as they were called ; 
young men, gathering skill and ex- 
perience to become in time surgeons 
themselves, who attended the infirmary 
with their masters. This one, Julius 
Wild, a youth of eighteen, was more 
particularly attached to the service of 
Mr. Cray, went round the wards with 
him as his dresser, and such like. No 
sooner did he see Dr. Davenal than 
his pace increased to a run, and he 
came up breathless. 

“ Oh, if you please, sir, Mr. Cray 
has been looking for you every- 
where ” 

“I have been to Thorndyke,” ii> 
terrupted the doctor. 

“Yes, sir, but he thought you mu^ 
have come back, and he sent me tb 
about twenty places to inquire. 
There’s something wrong with Lady 


94 


OSWALD CRAY. 


# 


Oswald, sir, and he wants to see you 
about it.” 

** What is it that’s wrong ?” 

“Mr. Cray didn’t explain to me, 
sir ; but he said something about an 
operation. She’s hurt internally, sir, 

I think.” 

Where is Mr. Cray ? Do you 
know ?” 

He is gone to your house, sir. 
Somebody told him they saw your 
carriage going along, and Mr. Cray 
tlmught you might be at home. 
He ” 

Dr. Davenal waited to hear no 
more. He made the best of his way 
towards home, but before he reached 
it he met Mark Cray. 

There, in the street, particulars 
were explained by Mr. Cray to Dr. 
Davenal, not altogether to the doctor’s 
satisfaction. It appeared that Mark 
— very carelessly, but hg excused 
himself on the plea of Lady Oswald’s 
fractious refusal to be touched — had 
omitted to make a proper examination 
* of her state on the previous night. 
The delay, though not fatal, was in- 
expedient, rendering the operation 
which must now be performed one of 
more difficulty than if it had been done 
at once ; and Dr. Davenal spoke a 
few sharp words, the only sharp ones 
he had ever in his life spoken to Mark 
Cray. 

told you it was my opinion 
there was some internal injury. You 
ought to have ascertained.” 

He turned his steps and proceeded 
at once and alone to the house of Lady 
Oswald. She was in a grievous state 
of suffering ; and that she had not 
appeared so on the previous night 
could only be attributed to partial in- 
sensibility. Dr. Davenal examined 
into her hurts with his practised skill, 
his gentle fingers, and he imparted to 
her as soothingly as possible the fact 
that an operation was indispensable. 
[ Not a very grave one,” he said with 
8 smile, intended to reassure. Noth- 
ing formidable, like the taking off of 
an arm or a leg.” 

Kilt Lady Oswald refused her con- 
sent, as fractiously and positively as 


she had the previous night refused to 
be touched. She would have no oper- 
ation performed on her, she said, pat- 
ting her to torture ; they must cure 
her without it. Some time was lost 
in this unsatisfactory manner, and 
Mark Cray arrived while the conten- 
tion was going on. Dr. Davenal was 
at length obliged to tell her a hard 
truth — that unless she submitted to 
it, her life must fall a sacrifice. 

Then there came another phase of 
obstinacy. When people are lying 
in the critical state that Lady Oswald 
was in, hovering between life and 
death, it is surely unseemly to indulge 
in whims, in moods of childish ca- 
price. If ever there is a time in the 
career of life that truth should reign 
pre-eminent, it is then : and these 
wilful caprices are born of a phase of 
feeling that surely cannot be called 
truth. Lady Oswald consented to the 
operation, but only on the condition 
that Mark Cray should perform it. 
What foolish caprice may have 
prompted this, it is impossible to say. 
Mark had been talking to her, very 
much as he would talk to a child to 
induce it to have a tooth drawn or a 
cut finger dressed : protesting that it 
‘'would not hurt her to speak of,” 
that it “ would be over, so to say, in 
no time.” Dr. Davenal, more honest, 
held his tongue upon those points : it 
would not be over in “no time,” 
and he knew that it would hurt her 
very much indeed. This it may have 
been that caused the wretched whim 
to arise, that Mark Cray should be 
acting surgeon. And she held to it. 

It was necessary that she should 
be allowed some repose after -the state 
of excitement to which she had put 
herself, and half-past five was the 
hour named. Dr. Davenal and Mark 
appointed to be with her then. 

“ Mark,” asked the doctor, as they 
walked away together, “ are you sure 
of yourself?” 

Dr. Davenal had had no experience 
hitherto of Mark Cray’s skill as a 
surgeon, except in common cases. All 
critical operations, both at the in- 
firmary and in private practice, the^ 


OSWALD CRAY. 


95 


doctor took himself. Mark looked at 
the doctor in surprise as he heard the 
question. 

Sure ! Why, of course I am. 
It^s quite a simple thing this.” 

“ Simple enough where the hand is 
experienced and sure,” remarked the 
doctor. “Not so simple where it is 
not.” 

“ Of course I have not had your 
experience, Dr. Davenal ; but I have 
had quite sufficient to insure my ac- 
complishing this, perhaps as skilfully 
as you could.” 

Mark spoke in a resentful tone : he 
did not like the reflection that he 
thought was cast upon him by the 
question. Dr. Davenal said no more. 
He supposed Mark was sure of his 
hand’s skill. 

“ I shall give her chloroform,” re- 
sumed Mark. 

“ No I” burst forth Dr. Davenal. 
He could not have interrupted more 
impetuously had he been interposing 
to dash it from her lips. He believed 
that Lady Oswald would be a very 
unfit subject for chloroform ; one of 
those few to whom it is not safe to 
administer it ; and he explained this 
to Mark Cray. 

Mark turned restive. Strange to 
say, he who had hitherto been content 
to follow in the medical steps of Dr. 
Davenal, watching his treatment, pur- 
suing the same, more as a pupil takes 
lessons of a master than as a man 
in practice for himself, seemed in- 
dined to turn restive now. Did Mark 
Cray, because he had married the doc- 
tor’s niece, thus becoming connected 
with him by private ties, and as it were 
a more equal partner — did he deem it 
well to exercise that right of inde- 
pendence which we all love, which is 
inherent in the hearts of the best of 
us, and stand up for his own ways 
and his own will ? 

“ I like chloroform,” he said “ I 
consider it one of the most blessed 
inventions of the age.” 

“Undoubtedly; where it can be 
safely used.” 

“I have used it fifty times,” re- 
joined Mark. 


“ I have used it fifty and fifty to 
that,” said the doctor, good-humoredly. 
“ But, Mark, I never used it in my 
life upon a doubtful subject, and I 
never will.” 

“ What do you call a doubtful sub- 
ject ?” 

“ What do I call a doubtful sub- 
ject ?” repeated the doctor. “You 
know as well as 1. How many pa- 
tients has chloroform killed ? Upon 
certain natures — ” 

“ Yery few,” interrupted Mark. 

“Yery few, as compared to the 
whole,” acquiesced the doctor. “ You 
may administer chloroform with per- 
fect safety to ninety-nine patients, and 
you cannot to the hundredth. Upon 
certain natures, as I was about to ob- 
serve, its effects may Jbe fatal. And 
where there is this doubt, Mark, it 
should be acted upon.” 

“ The cases are so rare.” 

“ True. And the important thing 
for a medical man is to discern where 
chloroform may be given with safety 
and where it may not.” 

“It is impossible that he can do 
that with any certainty.” 

“Not at all,” said Dr. Davenal. 
“ I never knew my judgment fail. 
I believe it is a gift, this ability to 
distinguish the subtle difference in 
natures. Perhaps I may call it in- 
stinct more than judgment, for I think 
it could not deceive or lead me to an 
erroneous decision.” 

“ I am not sure that I understand 
you,” said Mr. Cray. “ My belief is 
that I possess nothing of the sort. I 
think you must be talking of a spe- 
cies of second-sight.” 

“ Then, Mark,” was the half-joking 
answer, “ allow yourself to be guided 
by my ‘ second sight.’ To speak seri- 
ously,” the doctor continued, in a 
graver tone, “I know that there are 
many practitioners, clever men, who 
do not possess this peculiar insight 
into nature. It is a great gift for 
those who do. It can never be ac- 
quired by practice ; it must be in- 
herent — ” 

“ I suppose you think I don’t pos- 
sess it,” interrupted Mark. 


96 


OSWALD CRAY. 


“ I don’t think you do. But for one 
of us who possesses it, nine don’t ; so 
it is no disparagement to you to say 
go. To return to the question. Lady 
Oswald, in my opinion, would prove 
an unsafe subject for chloroform.” 

She will make so much of the 
pain.” 

Better that she should make much 
of it — ay, and feel it — than that any risk 
should be run. I cannot allow chlo- 
roform to be given to Lady Oswald.” 

Mark Cray demurred ; not out- 
wardly, for he said not another word ; 
but inwardly. He was of that class of 
men who disbelieve what they cannot 
sea Some of us will look into a man’s 
face and read his character, read him 
for what he is, as surely and unerringly 
as we read the pages of a book ; but 
others of us, who do not possess this 
gift, cannot believe that it exists, laugh 
at and ridicule the very idea of it. 
Just so was it with Mark Cray. That 
assertion of Dr. Da venal’s, that some 
faculty or instinct within him ena- 
bled him to discern where chloroform 
might and might not be administered, 
was utterly scouted by Mark Cray. 
That subtle instinct into nature, that 
unerring, rapidly formed judgment of 
a sick man’s state, the mental grasp- 
ing instantaneously of the disease and 
its remedy, Mark Cray possessed not. 
To the very end of his life he would 
never learn it. He could not there- 
fore see any reason why Lady Oswald 
should not be eased of her pain by 
the aid of chloroform he did not for 
a moment believe tlie doctor could ; 
he regarded it as a crotchet, and a 
very foolish one. But he suffered the 
question to rest, and resentfully sup- 
posed he must bow to the decision of 
his senior partner. 

** Shall I call for you, Mark ?” 
asked the doctor, as they separated. 
** I shall go up in the carriage.” 

Oh no, thank you. I’d as soon 
walk. You intend to be present ?” 

“ Of course I shah i.c/’ replied the 
doctor. Lady Osw ih^ is my patient, 
m point of fact — n(.t yours, Mark.” 

‘‘Then I need li » ask Berry. I 
thou^t of asking it to be present.” 


“You can do just as you please 
about that. If you like him to look 
on at you, you can have him. Twenty- 
five minutes after five, remember, 
punctual. You w'ant the full day- 
light. ” 

As they parted, a feeling was in 
Mark Cray’s heart that ho would not 
have liked to confess to the doctor, 
and that perhaps he did not care to 
encourage, and did not choose to 
dwell upon. He felt perfectly sure’ 
of his own skill ; he was not nervous, 
nobody less so ; and yet there was a 
half-reluctance in his mind to perform 
that operation in the presence of Dr. 
Davenal, the skilled and accomplished 
operator. Surely the reluctance could 
only have sprung from a latent doubt 
of whether he ought to make so sure 
of himself. A latent doubt, one not 
sufi’ered to appear; down far in the 
depths of his heart it lay, so deep 
that perhaps Mark thought it was 
not there at all, that it was only 
fancy. 

He would a great deal rather have 
had Berry with him — that he ac- 
knowledged openly enough to himself. 
Surgeon Berry was a man of fair 
average skill, superior to Mark in ex- 
perience, and he and Mark were great 
friends. Did Mark fear that the 
presence of the more finished and per- 
fect surgeon, with his critical eye, his 
practised judgment, would render him 
nervous — as a candidate for the Civil 
Service examinations will break down 
simply because those examining eyes 
are on him? No, Mark Cray feared 
nothing of the sort ; and he could not 
have told, had he been pressed, why 
he would have preferred the absence 
of Dr. Davenal. He had looked on 
many a time at the doctor in such 
cases ; but that was a different thing. 

His thoughts were interrupted by 
Julius Wild. The young man ac- 
costed him to inquire if there were 
any orders — whether he should be 
wanted. 

“ Yes,” said Mr. Cray. “ Lady 
Oswald’s case is fixed for this after- 
noon. You be up there with the 
dressings and things.” 


OSWALD CRAY 


97 


% 


‘Wery well, sir,” replied the young 
man, feeling some surprise, for he was 
not in the habit of attending privately 
with Dr. Davenal. Am I to go to 
Dr. DavenaPs for them ?” 

No. You can get them from the 
infirmary.” 

The infirmary I” thought Julius 
Wild to himself. ** Can he be going 
to take the operation ?” — for Mr. 
Cray’s surgical apparatus was kept at 
the infirmary. He did not ask : his 
professional master seemed unusually 
silent — not to say cross. 

‘‘ What time ?” he inquired of Mr. 
Cray. 

“ Be at Lady Oswald’s a little be- 
fore half-past ” 

The blank above is put intention- 
ally, for it cannot be told with cer- 
tamty what hour was really said by 
Mr. Cray. In the discussions upon 
it that ensued afterwards, Julius Wild 
declared in the most positive manner 
that it was six. “ A little before 
half-past six.” Mr. Cray asserted 
with equal pertinacity that he had 
said five. ^^A little before half-past 
five.” Which of* the two was right 
it was impossible to ascertain. Mark 
Cray said that he should not be likely to 
make the mistake : the time, half-past 
five, had been just fixed upon with Dr. 
Davenal, had been repeated by word 
of mouth, and he had never thought 
of the hour six at all. There was 
plausible reason in that, certainly. 
On the other hand, Julius Wild was 
known for a clear-headed, steady, ac- 
curate young man, and he protested 
he could stake his life upon his cor- 
rectness in this instance. He said 
the thought crossed his mind when 
Mr. Cray named it, that half-past six 
would be the dusk hour, and he rather 
wondered within himself that it should 
have been chosen. 

However it may have been, the 
misapprehension did occur between 
them. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

MARK CRAY’S MISTAKE.” 

When Dr. Davenal entered his own 
home, dinner had been over some time. 
It was their custom to dine early on 
Sunday : and the general rule was, 
by Dr. DavenaPs wish, not to keep 
meals waiting for him. Neal admit- 
ted him, and then came for orders. 
Should he bring up the dinner ? 

'' Not the dinner,” said Dr. Dave- 
nal; ‘^just a bit of something upon a 
plate. I am not hungry ; I had a late 
breakfast at Thorndyke. Has any- 
body been here for me ?” 

No, sir. I think Mr. Cray took 
your patients. He has been here — ” 

“ I know all about that,” interrupted 
the doctor. 

He passed Neal, and went on to 
the garden parlor, a favorite room of 
his daughter’s. She was there alone, 
seated before the open glass doors. 
How peaceful it all looked ! The 
green lawn stretching out in front, the 
bright hues of the autumn flowers, the 
calm purity of the dark blue sky lying 
in the stillness of the Day of Rest. 
Sara Davenal had a Bible upon her 
lap ; but she was not then reading it. 
She had closed it in deep thought. 
Her sweet face was turned upwards, 
her eyes were filled with tears from 
the intensity of her gaze : it seemed 
that she was looking for something in 
the autumn sky. The extreme calm, 
the aspect of peace, struck forcibly on 
the senses of Dr. Davenal, and he re- 
membered it in the days to come. It 
was the last day of peace for him ; it 
was the last day of peace for Sara : 
henceforth the world w^as to change 
for both of them. Ere the morrow’s 
sun should rise, a great care, a great 
trouble would be tugging at their 
heartstrings ; a skeleton would be 
there to keep — a secret that must be 
hidden for very safety’s sake. 


6 


98 


OSWALD CRAY. 




Dr. Davenal was upon her so 
quickly that she could not conceal her 
glistening eyes. She started up to 
welcome him, and laid down the book. 
Owing to that most attentive habit 
of Xoaks of being on the watch and 
opening the door before people could 
get to it, she had not heard him come 
home. 

“.Oh, papa, is it you ? You have 
been away a long while.” 

“ Sit down,” he said, pressing her 
into her chair again. “ What’s the 
grief, Sara ?” 

“Xo grief, papa. I was only 
thinking.” 

“ What about ? The accident last 
night ?” 

“ Oh no, not that. I hear that 
everybody’s going on quite well. I 
was thinking — I was wondering — 
somehow I often get thinking of these 
things on a Sunday, when I am sit- 
ting alone, and the sky seems so calm 
and near.” 

“ Well, what were you thinking ?” 

“I was wondering whether they 
who are gone can look down and see 
us — see me just as I sit here looking 
up — whether they can read my 
thoughts ? We seem so divided, 
papa : you and I and Edward left ; 
mamma and Richard, and the two 
little ones who were between me and 
Edward, gone.” 

“Divided for a short while only, 
child. 

“ Yes, I know. The only one I 
can remember well is Richard. I am 
beginning to lose almost all recollec- 
tion of mamma. Rut Richard — papa I 
at times I seem to see him before me 
now.” 

Dr. Davenal turned to the window 
and stood with his back to Sara, 
looking out. She repented having 
spoken of her brother : ^omehow the 
words had slipped out in the fulness 
of her thoughts. Rising, she stole 
her hand into Dr. Davenal’s. 

“ I forgot, papa,” she softly whis- 
pered. 

“ Forgot what, my child ?” he 
asked. “Xay, it might be just as 
well if we all spoke more of Richard, 


instead of shunning his name. Silence 
will not bring him back to us.” 

“Ah no, it will not !” 

^‘And when once griefs can be 
talked of, their sting becomes less 
poignant. Did the post bring any 
letters this morning ?” the doctor 
added, after a pause. 

“Xot for you, papa. There was 
one — how could I forget to tell you ? 
— there was one for me from Edward.” 

“And what does he sa}^ ?” 

“ He has not been able to get leave 
yet. At least from the tenor of his 
letter, I don’t much think he has 
asked for it. He says there’s a great 
deal to do ; that the preparations are 
going on very quickly ; but no orders 
have been received yet as to the day 
for embarking. As soon as they are 
issued he will let us know.” 

“ But he means to come down ?” 

“ Oh yes. He will be sure to come, 
he says, though it should be to arrive 
by one train and return by the next. 
He writes in great spirits, and asks 
me — in a joke, you know, papa — if I 
will pack up my boxes and go out 
with him.” 

“ He -What is it, Xeal ? My 

dinner ?” 

“ Yes, sir. It is sefved.” 

And now the scene must change to 
Lady Oswald’s. The house was pre- 
pared for what was going to take 
place, and Dr. Davenal arrived rather 
before the time appointed, Mr. Cray 
five minutes after it. Mr. Cray was 
in a heat, and had evidentl}" come at 
much speed, conscious probably that 
the time had expired. Lady Oswald 
was in her bed-chamber when Mr. 
Cray came up, Dr. Davenal in the 
ante -chamber. 

“Where’s Wild?” exclaimed Mr. 
Cray, throwing his eyes round the 
room. 

“ I have not seen him,” replied the 
doctor. 

“ It is very inattentive of him not 
to be here. I told him the hour. 
Have you seen her ?” added Mr. 
Cray, in a whisper. 

“Yes. She is all right. Are you 
I ready ?” 


OSWALD CRAY. 


99 


No, I am not ready,” replied Mr. 
Cray. '‘Wild is bringing up the 
dressings.” 

“I have every thing with me,” 
said Dr. Davenal. “ I have brought 
all.” 

In the room with Lady Oswald 
was her maid. Parkins. And the 
very moment that Dr. Davenal set 
his eyes on Parkins’s ashy pale face, 
he knew that she would be better out# 
of the room than in it. He said 
something to the effect, but Lady 
Oswald evidently wished for her, and 
Parkins avowed her intention of 
being as brave as need be. 

Time was being wasted. Marcus 
Cray, in a fidgety sort of manner, 
went^ down twice after his expected 
pupil. He opened the hall-door and 
stood there looking out for him ; and 
he did this twice over, for no sooner 
did he get up-stairs the first time than 
he went back again. Dr. Davenal 
could not exactly understand this. 
Mr. Wild was not required in any 
way ; and a half doubt stole over Dr. 
Davenal whether Mark Cray could be 
wilfully prolonging the minutes, as 
people will put off things they do not 
care to enter upon, from nervousness, 
dislike, or other causes. A^id, though 
he threw the doubt from Aim as an 
absurd improbability, hJ began to 
wish again to be the operator. 

“ Cray, I had better talie this.”' 

Marcus got irritated, and spoke out 
at the top of his voice. He would 
prefer to take it himself, Dr. Davenal 
permitting him. 

He spoke out so loud that he was 
heard by Lady Oswald. She inter- 
rupted the discussion — if discussion it 
might be called — and settled it. “ It 
should be only done by Mr. Cray.” 

“ Yery well,” said Dr. Davenal in a 
low tone to his partner. “ Be it so. 
But why do you wait, Mark ?” 

“ I want that fellow to be here.” 

“ He is not required. We shall let 
Lady Oswald get exhausted.” 

And Mark Cray, seeing the wisdom 
of the plea, made no further delay. 

You will not wish to be present at 
this operation, or to have its details 


transcribed. Hallingham did not 
know them for many a long day. But 
one or two things must be mentioned. 

At the very instant of its com- 
mencement, when Mark Cray was 
bending over Lady Oswald, there 
came something falling forward to the 
ground, which brushed against him. 
It was brave Parkins gone down in a 
fainting fit. Lady Oswald became 
agitated ; she shrieked out and would 
have risen had it been in her power. 
Dr. Davenal moved round and bore 
the senseless Parkins from the rooms. 

He could not throw her down out- 
side like a log. He had to call some 
of the household and tell them what 
to do with her. Then she began to 
start and kick in incipient convulsions : 
altogether it was three or four min- 
utes before Dr. Davenal got back to 
the room. It seemed to be delay after 
delay, as if the operation was fated 
not to be begun that day. 

The operation, however, was begun, 
he found. Before he got back, Mark 
had plunged into it. Dr. Davenal 
stepped up to him, and stood over- 
looking him with his unerring eye ; 
that eye which Mark had dreaded. 

Was it in consequence of that, that 
Mark Cray lost — what shall we call 
it ? — his presence of mind ? — his sur- 
gical skill ? A suppressed sound, half 
indignation, half dismay, escaped the 
lips of Dr. Davenal, and he pushed 
Mark aside with an authoritative hand 
and took his place. What could have 
come over Mark ? — what ailed him ? 
Lady Oswald was offering no opposi- 
tion, for she lay perfectly still. 

So still, so voiceless, that in the’ 
midst of his work it struck strangely 
on the senses of Dr. Davenal. He 
paused a moment to regard her atten- 
tively, and then glanced at Mark, one 
word only escaping him. 

“ Chloroform ?” 

“ Yes,” said Mark. “ I judged it 
best.” 

It was all that passed. Whatever 
Dr. Davenal may have felt, he could 
express neither doubt nor remon- 
strance then. His whole attention 
had to be concentrated on the work 


100 


OSWALD CRAY. 


jf 


he was performing. Mark stood bj 
and watched, saying nothing. 

At length it was over ; admirably 
performed, as all operations were per- 
formed, undertaken by Dr. Da venal. 
But Lady Oswald still lay without 
sense or motion ; and they could not 
arouse her. 

You must have given her a great 
deal,” observed Dr. Davenal, who was 
still occupied. 

Which Mark Cray did not at- 
tempt to deny. “ She required it. 
The fall of that stupid woman excited 
her terribly. The first lot made no 
impression on her ; she did not seem 
to inhale it.” 

But — good heavens I you did not 
wait long enough to see. Mark Cray, 
this is a mistake, and an awful one.” 

Mark made no reply. Mark was 
doing all in his power to undo his 
work and arouse Lady Oswald. But 
he could not. Dr. Davenal touched 
his shoulder and spoke upon a differ- 
ent subject. 

‘‘You told me you were sure of 
yourself.” 

Mark scarcely knew what he an- 
swered. Something to the effect that 
he always had been sure, until now : 
but his words were very indistinct. 

“ What incapacity came over you ? 
what was its cause ?” 

It was impossible for Mark Cray to 
deny that incapacity had attacked 
him ; that Lady Oswald under his 
hands would have been in the greatest 
danger. Its cause he could not ac- 
count for : but that common expres- 
sion, “losing all presence of mind,” 
would best describe it as it really was, 
and as it had appeared to Dr. Davenal. 
The drops of sweat stood out on his 
brow now as large as peas. 

“ The woman’s fall startled me,” he 
attempted to say. “At such a mo- 
ment it takes but a little to unnerve a 
man.” 

“ Then, if so, he is not fit for a 
surgeon,” returned Dr. Davenal. 
“ Mark Cray,” he continued, gravely 
and firmly, but not unkindly, “you 
must never in my presence attempt a 


critical operation again. Recollect 
that.” 

Once more their whole attention 
was given to Lady Oswald ; their 
best efforts were exerted to arouse 
her from the effects of the chloroform. 
All in vain, all useless ; it had done 
its work too effectually. 

By degrees the horror of the con- 
viction, that she could not be aroused 
— never more would be aroused — 
came pressing upon them deeper and 
deeper. Mark Cray wiped his hot 
face and felt that he would give all he 
was worth to recall that one act of 
his — the surreptitiously conveying the 
chloroform to the house, which he had 
himself so successfully accomplished, 
and regarded as a cause of self-con- 
gratulation. Why had he not attended 
to the experienced opinion of Dr. 
Davenal — that Lady Oswald was one 
of those upon whom chloroform was 
not unlikely to be fatal ? That it 
would be fatal in this case, Mark felt 
as certain now as if the breath had 
actually passed forever from her 
body : a horrible fear came over him, 
and he once more lost all calmness, 
all self-possession. 

“ Dr. Davenal, for the love of God, 
do not betray me I Do not let it go 
forth to the world as my wilful act, 
one you warned me against. It was 
a dreadful mistake ; I shall carry it 
about with me in my heart forever ; 
but do not betray me to the world 1” 

He had seized the doctor’s hands, 
and was pressing them nervously in 
his. His troubled face gazed implor- 
ingly upwards ; his bitter tone of re- 
pentance struck sadly on the ear. Dr. 
Davenal did not immediately speak, 
and Mark Cray resumed. 

“ For Caroline’s sake,” he entreated. 
“ If this mistake becomes known in 
all its unhappy details, my profes- 
sional doom is sealed. Never again, 
so long as I live, as you and I are to- 
gether, will I attempt to act on my 
opinion in opposition to yours. Be 
merciful to us. Dr. Davenal ! For 
her and my sake, conceal it from the 
world.” 


OSWALD CRAY. 


101 


And Dr. Davenal yielded. Ever 
merciful, ever striving to act in ac- 
cordance with the great precepts of 
love and mercy, he yielded to the 
prayer of the unhappy and agitated 
man before him. His own partner, 
Caroline’s husband — no, he could not, 
would not, bring upon him the oblo- 
quy of the world. 

I will keep the secret, Mark Cray. 
Be easy. You have my promise.” 

The unhappy tidings were made 
known to the household — that their 
mistress could not yet be aroused 
from the effect of the chloroform 
which had been administered with a 
view of saving her pain ; and they 
came flocking in. She was not dead ; 
but she was lying still and motion- 
less ; and the means for recalling life 
went on. Mark Cray continued his 
efforts when all hope was gone, try- 
ing every means, probable and im- 
probable, in his madness. Had a 
battery been at hand he would have 
essayed galvanism. 

Alas 1 they might as well have 
sought to arouse a stone statue. 
Never more would there be any 
arousing for poor Lady Oswald in 
this world. Death was claiming her : 
uncompromising Death ! 

Parkins, considerably recovered 
from her own attack, but in a shaky 
and tearful state, had come into the 
room with the rest. Parkins seemed 
inclined to rebel at the state of things ; 
to question everybody, to cast blame 
somewhere. 

Why should chloroform have been 
given to her?” she asked of Mr. Cray. 

“It was given with a view to 
deaden the pain,” was Mark’s short 
answer. 

“ But, sir, the operation was all but 
begun, if not begun, when I — when 
I — fainted: and there had been no 
question then of giving her chloro- 
form.” 

“ No, and it was your fainting that 
did three parts of the mischief,” sav- 
agely returned Mr. Cray, who felt it 
the greatest relief to be able to lay 
the blame upon somebody. “ It put 
her into a most undesirable state of 


agitation. I should think you must 
have heard her shriek, in spite of your 
fainting fit.” 

The words, the angry tone, com- 
pletely did for Parkins, and she sub- 
sided into tears again. A few minutes, 
and Dr. Davenal turned from the ill- 
fated lady to her servants standing 
there. 

“ It is all over. She is gone.” 

And the doctor looked at his watch, 
and found that only one poor hour had 
elapsed since he had entered the house 
to perform that operation which had 
altogether terminated so fatally. 


CHAPTER XIY. 

NEAL’S DISMAY. 

Dr. Davenal and Mr. Cray went 
forth together. Outside the hall door, 
stood Julius Wild. It now wanted 
twenty minutes to seven. The in- 
firmary pupil had arrived a quarter 
of an hour before, and had waited 
patiently ever since to be let in. He 
had rung the bell in vain. In the 
confusion and distress of the house, it 
had perhaps not been heard, certainly 
had not been attended to. His rings 
had been but gentle ones : Julius 
Wild knew better than to make a 
noise at a house when illness was in- 
side it : and he waited quietly enough, 
wondering whether the servants were 
asleep, whether Lady Oswald was 
worse, and believing the doctors had 
not yet arrived. 

When they came forth, he was ex- 
cessively surprised, marvelling greatly 
at his non-admittance. 

“ I have been ringing this quarter 
of an hour,” he said, by way of ex- 
planation and apology. “ I can’t think 
what the servants can have been 
about.” 

“What have you been about?” 
thundered Mark Cray, giving way to 
anger, although he had come straight 
from the presence of the dead. 

Mr. Wild was astonished. “ I say, 


102 


OSWALD CRAY, 


sir, I have been waiting here. I have 
been here this quarter of an hour, and 
could not get let in.’’ 

“ And, pray, what kept you ? Why 
were you not here to time ?” 

“ I was here to time, sir,” was the 
deprecating answer, and the young 
man marvelled much what had so put 
out his good-tempered medical master. 

You told me to be here a little before 
half-past six, sir, and I got hei'e five 
minutes before it.” 

Then began that dispute which was 
never satisfactorily settled : each, to « 
this very day, believing himself to be 
in the right Mr. Cray held to it 
that he had told him half-past five ; 
Julius Wild earnestly protested he 
liad said half-past six. The wrang- 
ling continued for some minutes, or 
rather the difference of opinion, for 
of course the pupil did not presume 
to wrangle with his superior. A few 
sharp words from Mark, peremptorily 
ordering him to hold his tongue, con- 
cluded it. 

The young man walked close by 
the two doctors, just a little behind 
them — for they had been walking 
down from Lady Oswald’s all along, 
had not stayed for one minute at 
the door. He had wondered at first 
whether the operation had taken place, 
and why they should leave the house 
just about the time fixed for it : now 
that he heard of the misapprehension 
with regard to the hour, he supposed 
it was over, and that Mr. Cray’s vex- 
ation arose from the fact of his not 
having arrived for it. But he was a 
young man of curiosity, fond of socia- 
bility in a general way and of asking 
questions, so he thought he would ask 
one now, and make sure. 

Is the operation over, sir ?” 

Yes,” curtly answered Mark. 

“Was it successful ?” 

“ When did you ever know Dr. 
Davenal unsuccessful ?” retorted Mr. 
Cray. “ That was successful enough.” 

It never occurred to Julius Wild 
that the stress upon the word “that” 
implied, or could imply, that, though 
the operation had been successful, 
something else was not. Perhaps it 


was half a subterfuge in Mark Cray 
to have said it. The young man 
asked no more questions. Finding 
himself so snubbed, he desisted, and 
walked behind in silence. Neither 
of them told the unhappy truth to 
him. Dr. Davenal may have been 
too pained, too shocked to sjx)ak ; 
and Mark Cray’s conscience too sug- 
gestive. Nay, Dr. Davenal may not 
thave seen his way clear to speak at 
all. If he was to conceal the cul- 
pability of Mark Cray, the less he 
• opened his mouth upon the point, 
even by a word, the better. 

Suddenly Mark turned round. “ You 
are not wanted, Mr. Wild. There’s 
nothing more to-night.” 

The young man took the hint at 
once, wished them good-evening, and 
walked off to the infirmary, there to 
leave certain articles that he had 
been carrying. He observed that 
Dr. Davenal, usually so courteous, 
never answered him, never gave him 
the good-evening in reply to his. 

The two surgeons walked on in 
silence. The streets were nearly 
deserted ; and the sound of praise and 
prayer came upon their ears from the 
lighted places of worship as they 
passed them. The evening was a 
warm one, and the doors of the 
churches and chapels stood open. 
They never spoke a word one to the 
other. Mark Cray felt as he had 
probably never, felt in his life — 
ashamed, repentant, grieved, humble. 
He was guilty of the blood of a fellow- 
creature. He called it a “mistake.” 
A mistake in one sense it undoubtedly 
was, but a wicked and a wilful one. 
Dr. Davenal felt it to be both : felt 
that the giving of the chloroform 
stealthily, in direct opposition to his 
expressed opinion, deserved a worse 
name: and, though he had promised 
not to betray Mark, he could not just 
yet subdue his own feelings, and speak 
to him in a friendly tone. Thus in 
silence they reached the doctor’s gate. 

“Good-night,” said he, turning in 
at it. 

“ Good-night,” replied Mark, con- 
tinuing his way. But — and he felt it 


OSWALD CRAY. 


103 


— there bad been no invitation to him 
to enter, no pleasant look, no shake 
of the hand. 

Neal was at the door, airing him- 
self and watching the scanty passers- 
by in the dusky street. The Sunday 
arrangements were good at Dr. Dav- 
enaPs : each servant being expected 
to attend public worship twice in 
a general way. NeaPs times were 
morning and evening, and Dr. Davenal 
inquired why he was not at church. 

It was Jessy’s evening at home, 
sir, but she had word sent her that 
her father was taken very ill ; so I 
offered to stay in for her while she 
went to see him.” 

Of course there was no objection to 
be made to that : Neal had done right. 
Dr. Davenal went into his study, and 
lifted his hat from his brow as if a 
heavy weight were there. He had no 
light, save what came in from the 
street gas-lamp. 

He leaned against the window in 
thought. Two hours before. Lady 
Oswald had been, so to say, as full of 
life as he was, and now — dead. 
Killed. There was no mincing the 
matter to himself: she had been killed. 
Killed by Mark Cray ! 

Had he done right in undertaking 
to screen Mark ? — to keep his culpa- 
bility a secret ? — to suffer the world 
to assume his innocence ? The reader 
may deem it a grave question : Dr. 
Davenal was asking it of himself. 
Had Mark’s been purely an error in 
j judgment ; had he administered the 
' chloroform, believing it to be the right 
and proper thing to do, leaving the 
issue with God, it had been different. 
But he had given it in direct opposi- 
tion to an opinion of more value than 
his own ; in, as was much to be feared, 
a spirit of obstinate defiance. It is 
true, he had not intended to kill : he 
had probably been over-confident of 
the result. How Dr. Davenal con- 
demned him, he alone could tell : but 
— was it his, the doctor’s . place, to 
hold him forth to the condemnation of 
the world ? No ; he, the merciful 
man, thou,^ht it could not be. One 
strong point on the side of this mercy 


was — that the proclaiming the facts 
could be productive of no good result : 
they could not recall the mistaken act; 
they could not bring the unfortunate 
lady back to life. It might be said 
that it should be made known as a 
warning to others not to trust Mark 
Cray ; but the very occurrence itself, 
with its tragical end, would, if the 
doctor knew any thing of human 
nature, be its own warning for Mark 
Cray’s whole lifetime. He did not 
think much of the surgical failure ; at 
least he was not dwelling on it. Prob- 
ably the worse calamity bad in a 
measure eclipsed the other in his mind. 
Young surgeons had turned nervous 
before now, as Dr. Davenal knew ; 
and the fall of the maid. Parkins, 
might certainly have startled him. It 
was not that that was troubling him ; 
he had arrested Mark’s shaking hands, 
and replaced them with his own sure 
ones, and carried the matter through 
successfully : it was the other matter. 

He ‘thought it over and over, and 
could not bring himself to see that he 
had done wrong in promising to hide 
the facts. If he went that hour and 
stood in the market-place and shouted 
them forth to all hearers, it could not 
bring back the forfeited life, it could 
not remedy the past in the remotest 
degree. He thought of his dead 
brother, Caroline’s father ; he remem- 
bered the words he had sent out to 
him to soothe his dying bed — “ The 
child shall be to me as a daughter.” 
He could not, on the very threshold 
of her wedded life, bring obloquy on 
the husband of her choice, and blight 
his good name, his fair ’prospects. 
And so he resolved to keep the secret 
— to guard the fatal mistake from the 
knowledge of the world. Only their 
own two selves were privy to it, 
therefore Mark was perfectly safe, 
except from him. The administering 
the chloroform must be looked upon 
as an error in judgment, of his own as 
well as of Mark’s : and yet scarcely 
an error, for perhaps nine surgeons 
out of ten would so have administered 
it to a patient under similar circum- 
stances, and have made no exception 


104 


OSWALD CRAY. 


of Lady Oswald. He, Dr. Davenal, 
must suffer this to be assumed, saying 
himself as little as was possible upon 
the matter to any one : in a case 
where the termination had been so 
unfortunate, his reticence would be 
excused. 

He leaned his head upon his hand 
on the dark twilight, and pondered 
over the circumstances. He could not 
keep his mind from dwelling upon 
them almost morbidly. A strange 
fatality seemed to have attended the 
affair altogether. There had been the 
obstinate persistence of Lady Oswald 
to see her landlord, in spite of com- 
mon sense and of Mr. Oswald Cray’s 
representation that it could not possi- 
bly serve her ; there had been the 
sudden falling lame of the carriage 
horse, for which the coachman had 
been unable to account ; and then 
there had been the accident to the 
train. Parkins had told him a con- 
fused tale — confused through her own 
grief, poor woman — of their having 
gone by mistake, she and her mis- 
tress, to the wrong side of the station 
at Hildon, and had thereby lost a train. 
They went, naturally enough perhaps 
for inexperienced travellers, to the side 
of the platform on which they had de- 
scended on going ; and it was not 
until a train came up to the other 
side, took in the passengers waiting 
on that side of the platform, and went 
on to Hallingham, that they discov- 
ered their mistake. But for that, they 
would have been at Hallingham safe 
and sound when the accident hap- 
pened to the late train. Then there 
was the f^ct of Mark Cray’s having 
been in the train, of his having been 
the first to see Lady Oswald. When 
brought afterwards to the home term- 
inus, she had said, “ Mr. Cray will go 
home with me and later she had 
insisted on his taking the operation. 
He, himself, had been called out to 
Thorndyke, had been kept there while 
the long hours of the best part of the 
day had flitted away. Had he not 
been called out, why, the operation 
would, beyond all question, have been 
performed in the morning, probably 


by himself, for he should have seen 
her early and detected its need. There 
was the absence of the pupil, Julius 
Wild, through what appeared an unac- 
countable mistake : had that pupil 
been present, to him would have fallen 
the task of getting Parkins from the 
room, and the chloroform could not 
have been administered. A curious 
chapter of accidents — or what are 
called such — and Dr. Davenal lost 
himself in the chain of thought. “ Oh, 
merciful Father, forgive him I forgive 
him this night’s work I” he murmured. 
‘‘And mayst Thou have taken that 
poor woman to her rest !” 

A great light, and Neal’s smooth 
voice broke upon Dr. Davenal. “ Shall 
I get you any thing, sir? Tea, 


“I don’t want any thing, I don’t 
want the gas lighted,” interrupted 
Dr. Davenal, starting from his chair. 
“Wait until you are called.” 

Neal, after a moment’s stare, shot 
back again. It was not so much the 
sharp words, more imperative than 
any commonly used by his master, 
but the tone of pain in which they 
were spoken, that struck Neal : nay, 
it almost seemed as if his entrance 
had brought a sort of terror to the 
doctor. 

It was not terror. Neal was mis- 
taken. But Dr. Davenal had been so 
completely buried in thoughts, not 
altogether of this world,' that the ab- 
rupt interruption with its common- 
place excuse, had seemed to him sin- 
gularly inopportune, causing him to 
wave away abruptly both the man 
and his words. 

He sat on in the dark again, and 
Neal took his place at the front door, 
and stood there looking out. Not a 
soul was in the house, save himself 
and his master ; and it may have 
seemed to Neal a more cheering way 
of passing the evening than to be shut 
up indoors. 

It grew darker. Neal strolled along 
by the skirting shrubs of the garden, 
and took his stand at the front gate, 
ready to exchange courtesies with the 
people who would soon be going home 


OSWALD CRAY. 


105 


from church and chapel. The moon 
did not give much light yet, but the 
night promised to be as clear and 
bright as the previous one had been. 

Halloa cried Neal, as a man he 
knew came up quickly. “ You are in 
a hurry to-night.’’ 

'' I have been out on business, Mr. 
Neal,” replied the man, who was in 
fact an assistant to a carpenter and 
undertaker. Our work can’t always 
wait for the Sabbath to go by before 
it is seen to.” 

“ Is anybody dead ?” as*ked Neal. 

'' Lady Oswald. The message came 
down to us best part of an hour ago, 
so I’ve been up there.” 

It has been observed that Neal was 
too well trained a gentleman both in 
manners and nerves to express much 
surprise, but the answer did cause 
him the very greatest shock. He was 
so startled as to take refuge in dis- 
belief. 

“ Lady Osiuald, did you say ? But 
she’s not dead !” 

But she is,” replied the man. “ I 
ought to know. I’ve just come from 
her.” 

Why, what has she died of ? They 
said the railway accident hadn’t ma- 
terially hurt her.” 

She haven’t died of the accident. 
She have died of. that — that — what 
you call it — as is give to folks to take 
the pain out of ’em.” 

Neal did not understand. To 
take the pain out of them ?” he re- 
peated, looking questioningly at the 
speaker. 

“ That stuff that have come into 
fashion of late years. The doctors 
will give it you while you have a 
tooth took out, if you let ’em.” 

Do you mean chloroform ?” 

That’s it. I never can remem- 
ber the name. But I’d rather call it 
poison, for my part — killing folks dead 
off without a warning.” 

Who gave it to Lady Oswald ?” 

^^Your master,” replied the man, 
lowering his voice to a whisper as he 
glanced at the windows of the house. 

The servants was in the room with 
me up there, and they told me about 


it. There was something to be done 
to my lady — some bones to be set, I 
believe — and the doctors went this 
afternoon, and they give her this stuff 
and it killed her. I wonder Parlia- 
ment don’t make a law again its use, 
for my part.” 

I am sorry to hear this,” exclaimed 
Neal. My lady was very friendly 
to me.” 

“Ay. The servants be cut up like 
any thing. And enough to make ’em ! 
It’s a shocking thing. The lady’s- 
maid says she can’t think why they 
should have give her the stuff, for Mr. 
Cray himself told her when he was 
there in the afternoon that what they 
had to do wouldn’t hurt my lady no 
more than a flea-bite. Any way she’s 
dead. But I can’t stop here, I must 
get along back with the measure. 
Good-night, Mr. Neal.” 

“ Good-night,” replied Neal. 

He leaned on the gate, watching 
the man hurrying onwards with his 
fleet steps, and thinking over what he 
had heard. Perhaps it is not too 
much to say that Mr. Neal would 
have preferred to hear of the death of 
any other person in Hallingham than 
of Lady Oswald’s. Lady Oswald had 
been a great friend to him, and it had 
been Neal’s intention to put her friend- 
liness to the test in a very short period 
of time. Neal was a subtle schemer, 
and he had been perfecting a plan by 
which, at one bold stroke, Lady Os- 
wald’s mind should be disabused of 
that suspicion against himself imparted 
to her by Dr. Davenal on the day of 
Miss Caroline’s marriage — the suspi- 
cion to which he had been an unsus- 
pected listener — and he himself should 
also be effectually served. Neal had 
begun to feel that his tenure in his 
present situation was no longer sure, 
and he intended, by the help of Lady 
Oswald, to secure to himself a situ- 
ation of a different nature. 

Now this grand scheme was de- 
stroyed. As the rising waves dash 
away the “houses” built by children 
on the sands of the seashore, so this 
chateau en Espagne of Neal’s was 
dashed down by the death of Lady 


106 


OSWALD CRAY. 


Oswald. If Xeal’s cold and selfish 
heart could like any one, it had liked 
that lady. She had kept up friendly 
relations with him, as a former retainer 
of Sir John and Thorndyke ; had 
shown more consideration to him than 
ro her own servants — had treated him 
in fact as superior to her servants. 
When Yeal waited on her at her resi- 
dence to pay his respects, as he did 
occasionally, she would ring the bell 
on his departure and say sharply, 
Show Mr. Xeal out” — as much as to 
remind her household that he had not 
been a common servant at Thorndyke : 
he was groom of the chambers. She 
had also been liberal in her presents 
to Yeah Altogether, Yeal in his dis- 
comfiture felt very much as though 
her ladyship’s death was a grievance 
personally inflicted on himself. 

Jessy, the housemaid, was the first 
of the servants to return. Her parents 
lived away from the town in a lonely 
spot, reached by a lonely walk, and 
she had hastened back before it was 
quite night. The moment she entered, 
Yeal took his hat and strode up to 
Lady Oswald’s, with a view of learn- 
ing particulars. The news had been 
so sudden, so unexpected, that some 
faint feeling of hope almost seemed to 
be in the man’s mind that it should 
turn out untrue. 

He found it too true. He was al- 
lowed to see Lady Oswald, and he 
listened to the details given by the 
servants, gathering them into his 
mind to be turned over and examined 
afterwards. Parkins spoke with him 
privately. She was very bitter against 
the chloroform : she safd to him that 
she should always look upon the ad- 
ministering it as an underhand trick 
not to be understood. There was no 
question of chloroform when she was 
in the room, and that was up to the 
very last moment : there was no chlo- 
roform present that she saw, and the 
doctors must have got it concealed in 
their pockets ;ind produced it when 
her back was turned. She didn’t 
blame Mr. Cray ; she was certain it 
was not Mr. Cray; for he had told 


her privately in the afternoon that 
the operation would be a mere noth- 
ing, a fleabite — and she could only 
wonder at Dr. Davenal’s not having 
exercised more caution. One of the 
servants down-stairs had had some 
experience in chloroform, she added, 
and her opinion was that an over 
quantity must have been given : that 
Dr. Davenal had mistook the dose, 
and given too much. At any rate, 
if ever there was a murdered woman, 
it was her mistress. 

Parkins’s eyes were alight when she 
said this, and Parkins’s cheeks aflame. 
Her grief for the loss of her mistress 
was merging into anger at its cause. 
Like Yeal, she was beginning to con- 
sider it as a personal grievance in- 
flicted on herself, and to resent it as 
such. Self-interest sways the best 
of us more or less ; and Parkins felt 
that through this she had lost a better 
place than she should ever find again. 
Yeal asked her a few questions on his 
own score, and hurried away with the 
information he had garnered. 

He hastened home with the utmost 
speed that he could muster. He had 
a reason^ — at least he thought ho might 
have one in future — for not wishing it 
to be known at home that he had paid 
that visit to Lady Oswald’s. A short 
visit at the best, some twenty min- 
utes, completed his stay in the house, 
and the late passers-by from church 
were but in the streets when he re- 
turned, slowly pacing along in the 
lovely autumn night. He whisked in 
just in time to admit the ladies. 

“ Is papa in, Yeal ?” 

“ Yes,” answered Yeal, hap-hazard, 
for he was of course not positive upon 
the point. I fancy he is in his room, 
Miss Sara.” 

Sara knocked at the consulting-room 
door and entered. As she went for- 
ward Yeal contrived-to obtain a pass- 
ing view of the interior. It was still 
in darkness, and Dr. Davenal was 
leaning his back against the window- 
frame, ids arms folded, his head bowed, 
as one will stand when under the 
weight of care. 


OSWALD OR AY. 


107 


It looks just as though he had 
purposely killed her was Neal’s 
comment to himself. 

Not that Neal thought it then. No, 
no. But Neal was in a state of ter- 
rible vexation and disappointment ; 
in that precise mood when it is a vast 
relief to vent one’s trouble upon any- 
body. 

“ How sad you look, papa !” cried 
Sara, as she noted his depressed atti- 
tude. '‘And you are all in the dark I” 

Dr. Davenal aroused himself, put 
his hand on his daughter, .and turned 
round to face the street. At that 
moment the death-bell rang out. 

Accustomed now to the darkness 
of the room — not that it was entirely 
dark, for the doctor had thrown open 
the Yenetian blind, and the gas-lamp 
cast in its rays brightly — Sara could 
see how sad and clouded was his face. 
The death-bell was striking out its 
quick sharp strokes. 

Do you know who the bell is 
tolling for, papa ? I never heard it 
ring out so late as this.” 

I expect it is tolling for Lady 
Oswald.” 

“ Papa ! For Lady Oswald 1” She 
quite shrieked as she said it in her 
startled surprise. 

“ She is dead, child,” he said, his 
subdued voice a contrast to hers. 

“Oh, papa! Was it the opera- 
tion ? Did she die under it ?” 

Yes — in one sense. The opera- 
tion was successfully accomplished, 
but — chloroform was administered, 
and she never rallied from it.” 

Sara stood still, her heart beating. 
It seemed that a hundred regrets 
were crowding upon her, a hundred 
questions. “ Oh, papa, why did you 
administer chloroform?” she exclaim- 
ed, scarcely knowing what she said. 

For a single moment the tempta- 
tion came over Dr. Davenal to tell 
his daughter the truth, and he had 
unclosed his lips to speak : but he 
checked himself in time. Sara was 
trustworthy ; he knew that ; but it 
was impossible to answer for chance 
or inadvertent words even from her ; 


and for Mark’s sake it might be better 
to leave her in equal ignorance with 
the rest of the word. 

“ My dear,” he said — and the words 
to her ear sounded strangely solemn 
— “ I have striven to do the best 
always for my patients, under God. 
Had I been able to save Lady Os- 
wald’s life I would have saved it.” 

“ Oh yes, papa, I know that. 
We all know it. Did she die quite 
suddenly ? Was she sensible of her 
state ?” 

“ People who die under the in- 
fluence of chloroform seldom know 
any thing after inhaling it. She did 
not. Sara, it is a painful subject ; I 
would rather not speak of it. I feel 
it greatly ; greatly.” 

She quitted him and went up-stairs 
to take off her things. When she 
came down again Dr. Davenal was in 
the dining-room, and the tray, as was 
usual when they dined early, was on 
the table with some slight refresh- 
ment. 

“ Not any thing for me,” said the 
doctor to his sister. “ I cannot eat 
to-night.” 

He did not sit down ; he was pacing 
the carpet with thoughtful, measured 
tread. Neal stole a glance at him 
from under the corner of his eyes. 

“ Shall I light the gas in your 
study, sir, to-night ?” 

“No. Yes, you may light one 
burner,” the doctor added after a 
moment’s pause. 

“ What’s the matter, Richard ?” 
asked Miss Davenal. “ You seem cut 
up. Have you bad a hard day’s 
work to-day ?” 

“ Pretty well,” called out the doctor. 

“Do you know who it is that’s 
dead ? Very queer that the passing- 
bell should toll out at night!” 

“ You can tell your aunt, Sara,” the 
doctor quietly said, as he stepped to 
the door of the room, and vanished. 

“Well, I’m sure!” angrily cried 
Miss Davenal. “ My brother is polite 
to-night. He might have answered 
me. ” 

Sara pushed the piece of cake she 


108 


OSWALD CRAY. 


had been trying to eat from her, and 
went close to her aunt, speaking in 
her slowest and most distinct tones. 

Don’t you see that papa has had 
a great shock — a blow, Aunt Bettina ? 
Lady Oswald is dead.” 

Poor Miss Davenal, never very 
quick at comprehending, confused the 
information together in the most help- 
less manner. What do you say ? 
LadV Oswald has had a blow ! Who’s 
dead 

“Aunt, aunt! you will understand 
me if you won’t be impatient. Lady 
Oswald is dead. And I say it is a 
great blow to papa. I can see that 
it is.” 

Miss Davenal heard now, and 
looked perfectly scared. “ Lady Os- 
wald dead ! It cannot be, Sara.” 

“ She had to undergo some opera- 
tion in consequence of the accident, 
and papa gave her chloroform, hoping 
of course to lighten the pain, and she 
never rallied from it.” 

Miss Davenal seized Sara’s hands 
in her dismay. Her senses were 
sharpened and she had heard per- 
fectly ; her face had turned white. 
Neal, who had come in, looked at her 
as he stood near the door, and won- 
dered whether she was going to faint. 

“ Sara, I don’t like that chloroform. 
I have told the doctor so often and 
often. They should never try it upon 
me. Who gave it to her ?” 

“ Papa,” replied Sara, never dream- 
ing but she was correct in saying so. 
“Aunt Bettina, he gave it to her, for 
the best.” 

“ Best ! of course he gave it for the 
best : nobody disputes that. But I 
don’t like it : I never did like it. 
Chloroform is come into fashion now ; 
an improvement on the old state of 
things, they call it, as they call the 
railways ; and I don’t deny that it 
spares pain : but I do not like it.” 

By-and-by Sara went to the con- 
sulting-room. The doctor was pacing 
it uneasily. 

“ I have come to say good-night, 
papa.” 

“ You are going to bed early. Is 
it ten o’clock ?” 


“ Yes, I think it is past ten. Good- 
night, dear papa. I hope you will be 
better in the morning.” 

“ I have felt nothing like it since 
the death of Richard. Good-night, 
my child.” 

It was not so much the death itself 
that was affecting Dr. Davenal, as the 
appalling reflection that it had been 
in a manner, wilfully caused. The 
knowledge weighed on his heart like 
a stone. 



CHAPTER XV. *• 

THE NIGHT VISITOR TO DR. DAVENAL. 

The bedchamber of Sara Davenal 
was over the doctor’s study, on the op- 
posite side of the corridor to the draw- 
ing-room. It was not large, but longer 
than it was wide, and the bed was placed 
at the far end of the room — the back. 
The chamber behind it was occupied 
by Miss Davenal. The room oppo-^ 
site Miss Davenal’s and behind the 
drawing-room had been the bedcham- 
ber of Dr. Davenal in his wife’s life- 
time ; since her death it had been 
kept as a spare-room for chance vis- 
itors. 

Sara did not begin to undress im- 
mediately upon entering the room. 
She put out the light, and sat down 
at the open window to indulge in a 
little quiet thought : it was rather a 
habit of hers to do so when the night 
was fine and she came up early. She 
liked to sit there, and think of many 
things, and glance up at the clear 
sky in the bright moonlight. With all 
her practical good sense — and she had 
her full portion of it — she was of a 
somewhat dreamy, imaginative tem- 
perament; and since Richard’s death 
she had grown to think more of that 
other home to which he was gone, the 
same to which we are all hastening, 
more than it is usual perhaps for girls 
of Sara’s age to think of it. As she 
had said to Dr. Davenal in the after- 
noon, she would wonder whether 
Ptichard — and her lost mother whom 


OSWALD CRAY. 


109 


she but imperfectly remembered — 
could look down upon her : she was 
fond of fancying that they were look- 
ing down upon her ; and she would 
lose herself in a maze of visionary 
imaginings. 

Not on this night, however, did her 
thougjits turn to Richard. They were 
full of Lady Oswald and her unhappy 
death. That this fatal chloroform had 
been administered for the best, in ac- 
cordance with Dr. DavenaPs expe- 
rienced judgment, Sara assumed as a 
matter of course ; she never so much 
as thought of casting a doubt upon 
it ; but she knew enough of him to 
be sure that the sad termination would 
cause him to repent of having given 
it — to blame himself bitterly, and she 
felt for him to the very depth of her 
heart. An uncomfortable sensation, 
as if her father had been guilty of 
some deliberate wrong, was perme- 
ating her, and she could not shake it 
off. 

It should be observed that although 
Sara sat close to the open window, she 
was not liable to be seen by the pass- 
ers-by in the street, should any cast 
their eyes that way. A small stand 
or ledge had been constructed round 
the window (a bay window, as was 
the one answering to it on the other 
side of the drawing-room), and this 
was filled with pots in flower. Gera- 
niums of many species, fuchsias, helio- 
tropes, heaths, wild thyme, the fine 
flowering cactus, and many others, 
raised their heads proudly and formed 
a screen behind which Sara was se- 
curely sheltered from observation, and 
also from the rays of the gas-lamp at 
the gate, which otherwise would have 
cast their light upon her. So that, 
although she could see out perfectly 
well, sitting as she now was, she could 
not\be seen. If she chose to stand at 
the window and lean out, her head 
was above the flowers ; but at the 
same time they entirely prevented her 
from seeing any thing immediately 
below her window. The ground for 
a yard or two round Dr. DavenaPs 
study window was as completely hid- 
den from her as though it had been a 


hundred miles off : and it is necessary 
to mention this. The bedroom above 
Sara’s, occupied by Watton the upper 
maid, had a flat window, and its view 
underneath was in like manner ob- 
structed by the extending bow and 
the plants in it of Sara’s. These flow- 
ers at Miss Sara DavenaPs window 
were quite the admiration of the pe- 
destrian portion of Hallingham, and 
many a one would halt at the front 
railings to take a passing gaze at 
them. They were really beautiful, 
and Sara took a pride in them and 
liked to tend them. 

She liked to inhale their sweet per- 
fume, as she was doing now, sweeter 
and stronger in the night air than in 
the garish day. Perhaps, of all, the 
heliotrope gave the most powerful 
scent : and somehow that heliotrope 
had become associated in her mind 
with Mr. Oswald Cray. She could 
not have told why or wherefore ; she 
had never attempted to analyze the 
cause : she only knew that when she 
approached that window, and the per- 
fume of the heliotrope was wafted to 
her senses, the image of Oswald Cray 
was, in like manner, by some myste- 
rious instinct, wafted to her mind. 

Possibly it did not require any ex- 
traneous aid to bring him to her 
memory. He was already too se- 
curely seated there. For the last 
twelvemonth, since Oswald Cray had 
become intimate at their house, her 
love for him had been gradually 
growing into being: that subtle un- 
derstanding, never to be explained or 
accounted for, which draws together 
two human hearts, and only those two, 
the one for the other, of all the whole 
world, life finding life — that under- 
standing had arisen between them. 
Oswald Cray had never spoken or 
hinted at his feelings until the time 
when Dr. Davenal honestly avowed 
to him that he had fancied he cared 
for Caroline : that had brought forth 
the one word — and it was little more 
— to Sara. But she had known it just 
as surely as though he had spoken out 
all along. 

Save for that shrinking reticence 


no 


OSWALD CRAY. 


which would fain hide the secret, as 
the modest snowdrop hides its head, 
and which must always accompany 
the feeling if it be genuine, there was 
nothing to be ashamed of in this love. 
It was true that it had become en- 
twined with every fibre of her heart : 
it was a part and parcel of her very 
l3eing. It would perhaps have been 
impossible — at least, it would have 
been very improbable — for Sara Dav- 
enal, with the right feeling and the 
powers of discernment which she pos- 
sessed in a high degree, and her sound 
good sense, to fall in love with an 
unworthy man. She could not have 
met with a more worthy one than 
Oswald Cray. He had his faults — 
aye, who has not ? — but they were 
faults of what may be called a high 
order ; not mean, drivelling, scandal- 
izing faults, that abound in the world. 
Each was suited and suitable to the 
other, in taste, in position, in moral 
goodness : and their love had been 
given for aye ; beyond the power of 
circumstances or time to change. 
They might never be more to each 
other than they were now. Unto- 
ward fate might separate them; the 
world's bitter tongues, expediency, 
tlie poison of misunderstanding ; any 
one of these separating causes might 
part them. Sara’s unbending princi- 
ple, Oswald’s wrong-headed pride — 
it was impossible to foretell : but of 
one thing, both might rest assured, 
that unto their dying day that love 
could never be wholly extinguished 
in either heart, so as to give place to 
another. 

Somehow the thoughts of Sara 
Davenal had wandered from the pain- 
ful subject of Lady Oswald to this 
brighter one : wandered unwittingly, 
against her will. She would not have 
chosen to dwell upon her love that 
sad night, or on the one sweet word 
of Oswald when ho last parted from 
her : but there it was, sounding in her 
ears and her heart : and she lost her- 
self in one of the sweetest reveries 
that ever maiden pictured of the 
future. 

Suddenly she was aroused from it. 


Not by any thought of poor Lady Os- 
wald, or of her father’s sorrow, or of 
the minutes that were hurrying on, 
but by the sight of some one coming 
in at the front gate. It was nothing 
unusual for that gate to be invaded at 
night, by messengers summoning Dr. 
Davenal to some urgent bed of sick- 
ness. But this intruder had something 
peculiar about him, or about his move- 
ments, which attracted her eye. 

He was a tall man, wearing a cap, 
and a gray Scotch plaid scarf. The 
•cap, which had a peak to it, appeared 
to be tied down over his ears, and the 
scarf was worn in a droll fashion, one 
at least which Sara had never seen in 
Hallingham. It was put lengthways 
over the shoulders, as a lady puts on 
a scarf; it came down to the waist 
behind, and was held very much up 
to the neck in front. Sara naturally 
looked at the man, looked keenly with 
a view of distinguishing his features. 
In her sympathy with the sick, she 
thought to learn, by him, who was ill 
that night and wanted her father. But 
she was unable to do this, and the first 
thought that struck upon her as 
curious was, that a man should be so 
completely wrapped up on that genial 
night. The next curious thing that 
struck her, was — the man’s move- 
ments. 

. He had come up to the gate with 
very quick steps — as messengers from 
the sick often did come — opened it, 
and gave a sort of dart or spring to his 
right, which brought him under the 
shade of the laurels and hid him from 
the moonlight. There he stopped, re- 
connoitering the house, so far as could 
be seen^ and really it required a quick 
eye to distinguish him at all from the 
dark shrubs. That was not precisely 
the way in which night applicants 
came to Dr. Davcnal’s house ; and 
Sara, very much astonished, rose 
quietly from her seat, to obtain a bet- 
ter view of the stranger. 

He came on at last, creeping close 
to the shrubs, keeping under their 
shade, until he gained Dr. Davenal’s 
window. With all Sara’s endeavors 
to look, she there lost sight of him, 


OSWALD CRAY. 


Ill 


because he was beneath, but she heard 
a gentle tapping at the window. Not 
the quick, imperative noise of one in 
haste, demanding instant attention, 
but a covert, stealthy tapping, which 
seemed afraid of being heard. More 
and more astonished, Sara leaned out 
further, but she could not lean far 
enough to see. 

The window was opened instantly: 
therefore it was to be supposed that 
Dr. Davenal had not retired from the 
room ; that his light had probably 
guided the stranger to apply at the 
window, instead of at the door. The 
fii^t sound, after the opening of the 
window, was a warning hush-sh-sh-sh I 
but whether it came from the applicant 
or from her father she could not tell. 
A short colloquy followed, only a word 
or two, spoken in the most covert 
tones, and then Dr. Davenal went to 
the front door and admitted the visitor. 
Sara sat down, overwhelmed with 
amazement. 

Unfortunately, somebody else was 
overwhelmed with amazement — or 
perhaps the better word for him would 
be curiosity — and that was Mr. Neal. 
Neal had been a witness to it all. 
When it struck half-past ten — and this 
mysterious visit had occurred some 
five minutes subsequent to that time — 
Dr. Davenal had opened his study 
door, called to Neal, and told him to 
put the gas out, which was equivalent 
to telling him to go to bed — the put- 
ting out of the gas being the last ser- 
vice usually required of Neal. Neal 
came forward and did as he was 
directed — he put out the hall-lamp 
and the other burners that were alight, 
with the exception of the one in the 
doctor’s study. Dr. Davenal always 
took that upon himself, and he put out 
the burner as he spoke to Neal, and 
lighted his candle for bed, no gas being 
laid on in the bedrooms. Neal then 
went down-stairs and turned the gas 
off at the main ; so that the house 
was safe. 

But Neal, as a matter of taste, was 
not fond of retiring early. And when 
he came up again, and had shut him- 
self into his pantry, instead of passing 


into his sleeping-room, he blew out 
his candle, opened the door on the 
side, and, dexterously avoiding con- 
tact with the shrubs, he stole to the 
front. There he s'tood, amidst the 
shrubs, near the doctor’s window, with 
a view possibly of giving himself a 
little fresh air. 

He glanced at the window ; the 
half shutters were not drawn up — the 
doctor usually did this himself the very 
last thing — and he could see the wax 
candle on the table through the Yene- 
tian blinds. The upper shutters of the 
window were closed ; Neal always ^ 
closed those when he lighted the gas ; 
but his orders were to leave the lower 
ones open. It was a fancy of the 
doctor’s, the being able to take a look 
out at the street until the last, if he 
chose to do so. The upper shutters 
being closed did not prevent the win- 
dow being opened at will. It is as 
well to give these details, for this was 
an eventful night in the existence of 
Dr. Davenal, and of others besides. 

Neal could see the candle, and he 
could see his master. Dr. Davenal 
was seated at the table, his head lean- 
ing on his hand. Whether he was 
reading, or whether he had merely 
bent his head in thought, Neal could 
not discern, but he thought he had 
never in his life seen a countenance so 
troubled. 

There was nothing in all that, how- 
ever, to afford particular gratification 
to Neal’s curiosity, and he drew cau- 
tiously away from the window, and 
turned his attention to the street. It 
was necessary to be cautious, for the 
least stir of the shrubs would have 
been heard by Dr. Davenal on that 
still night, sitting as he did with the 
window a little open — his custom 
until he retired. Neal stood watch- 
ing the passers-by. Stay ; watching 
for any passers-by : but he had not 
seen one yet. Sunday evening hours 
were early at Hallingham, and people 
were mostly ir/doors and a-bed. Now 
in point of fact, Neal had no particular 
motive in stealing out and standing 
there : he was not expecting any one 
or any thing : but he had a habit of 


112 


OSWALD CRAY. 


peering about him a great deal more 
than most people have, and rarelj 
went finally to rest without coming 
out to take a general glance round, 
and see any thing there might be to 
see. 

Little did Neal anticipate the re- 
ward his curiosity was to receive this 
night. He was taking a last look 
previous to retreating, thinking it 
rather slow work standing there with 
nothing to see, not even a stray pas- 
senger on that quiet Sunday night, 
when the man who had so surprised 
Sara Davenal darted in at the gate. 
Neal strained his eyes in a vain at- 
tempt to discover who it was, and 
backed into safe quarters. 

He heard the low tapping at the 
window ; he heard the warning hush 
when the doctor opened it, and he 
could not say for certain, any more 
than Sara could, which of the two it 
was who had given that warning 
hush ; and then after a short whisper- 
ing, the purport of which he was en- 
tirely unable to make out, the doctor^s 
tones were a little raised : 

I will open the door for you.” 

The stranger made his way to the 
front door. Neal, in the swift, unerr- 
ing, covert manner which practice had 
rendered facile, stole back to his pan- 
try with incredible speed, and was in 
time to peep out of it and see the 
visitor admitted. 

But he gained nothing by his move- 
ment. The hall was in the dark : Dr. 
Davenal had not brought his candle 
out, and Neal could not see more than 
the very faintest outline of their forms. 
They passed into the room in silence, 
and Neal heard the door closed quietly 
and cautiously : another minute and 
the bolt was slipped. He took off his 
shoes and stole on tiptoe in his stock- 
ings to the door and put his ear to it. 

No, not a word could he hear. 
That door was a sound door, a close- 
fitting one : Neal had tried it before 
in his life, and obtained no more re- 
sult than he was obtaining now. He 
made his way back through the pan- 
try to the window again, and there 
Neal could have groaned in impotent 


rage had he dared, for Dr. Davenal 
had shut it. 

But he had not closed the shutters. 
Neal, if it was any satisfaction to him, 
could get a glimpse in through the 
upright staves of the Venetian blinds. 
It was but a glimpse, for they were 
turned all but close together, the one 
stave nearly lying on the other, and 
it did not afford him satisfaction, for 
he could see neither Dr. Davenal nor 
his visitor, who were seated at the 
side of the room close together where 
the angle of view obtainable by Neal 
xjould not reach them. A very f^int 
hum of voices penetrated his ear, and 
he was not sure whether that was not 
fancy. Their conversation was being 
carried on in the lowest tones. 

Unsatisfactory as was the result as 
a whole, Neal waited with patience. 
Such men as Neal are always patient. 
The clock struck eleven, and the clock 
struck half-past eleven, and Neal was 
still there. 

Then there occurred a change. Dr. 
Davenal rose from his seat and began 
pacing the room. His whole face 
was working with agitation. Neal 
caught a sight of it occasionally as he 
paced, and was struck by the troubled 
expression, nay, by the dread that 
pervaded it. Neal had long ago 
made up his mind as to the purport 
of the visit — that it was in some way 
connected with the catastrophe of the 
evening, the death of Lady Oswald. 

Suddenly Neal was startled. His 
nose was uncommonly close to the 
window, and the window was ab- 
ruptly raised; raised without the 
slightest warning some half-dozen 
inches. Neal believed his nose was 
off. 

When he came to himself, which 
he really did not for a few minutes, 
some words in a distressed tone were 
issuing from the lips of Dr. Davenal. 

Silence must be purchased at any 
price ; at any price. If it takes the 
whole of my fortune, I must purchase 
silence.” Neal pricked up his ears. 

Dr. Davenal was walking still ; the 
visitor, whoever he might be, never 
moved from his seat. It was only 


OSWALD CRAY. 


113 


when the doctor came near the win- 
dow that Neal caught an occasional 
word. '‘Yes, Lady Oswald herself. 
She wished it,’’ wer-e the next words 
he heard, and then there was anotlier 
lull. 

“ I am aware of that. Murder ? 
yes, the world would look upon it as 
such. I felt certain that Lady Os- 
wald was one to whom chloroform, if 
administered, would prove fatal. 
Heaven help me I What have I done 
that the trials of this day should fall 
upon my head ?” 

Dr. Davenal was standing at the 
window as he said this, had halted 
there with his voice close to Neal’s 
face, and Neal’s hair stood on end as 
he heard it. From that moment the 
man believed — fully believed in his 
inmost heart — that his master had 
purposely destroyed Lady Oswald. 
Perhaps the belief, judging from these 
disconnected and certainly ominous 
words, wa« excusable. 

For a short while Neal heard no 
more. His master had halted op- 
posite the stranger and was talking 
fast, but nothing came to Neal but a 
confused sound. Then he advanced 
again. 

“I tell you it shall be done. If it 
costs every penny piece that I have 
saved, this horrible secret must be 
bought up — if money will buy it. I 
shall never know another happy mo- 
ment : I shall live as with a sword of 
disgrace hanging over me, ever ex- 
])e cling it to fall,” 

Some murmured words came from 
the stranger, and Neal stretched his 
ear to its utmost tension. Whether 
in doing so he made the least noise, 
touched the window, rustled the 
jjhrubs, he could not tell, but Dr. 
Davenal turned and shut the window 
down as swiftly and suddenly as he 
had put it up. 

So, hearing was cut off. But Neal 
could see still — just a glimpse. He 
«aw Dr. Davenal go out of the room 
with the candle, and bring back a 
plate of biscuits and a decanter of 
wine. He knew he must have gone 

7 


to the dining-room sideboard for 
them. A wish crossed Neal’s mind 
to go indoors, make the excuse that k 
he had heard his master stirring and 
dash into the study on the pretence 
of inquiring if he could do any thing. 
But he did not dare. Neal would 
have given a whole year’s wages to 
get one good look at the visitor. 
Presently all sight was cut off. Im- 
mediately after he had put down the 
decanter and biscuits. Dr. Davenal 
turned to the window, and pulled up 
the shutters. 

Ii was a checkmate for Neal. He 
went in and stood just outside his 
pantry, hesitating whether to go close 
to the door or not. It was well he 
did not, for Dr. Davenal came out 
almost immediately and went up-stairs 
to his daughter’s room. 

Neal heard him knock at it very 
softly : he heard him ask in a whis- 
per whether she was in bed yet. 
That she was not in bed the immedi- 
ate opening of the door proved. 

Dr. Davenal w^ent in and closed the 
door. Neal could hear the murmur 
of his voice, as if he were explaining 
something to his daughter, and then 
they came down together, treading 
softly, not to arouse the house. Neal 
could see that she was fully dressed, 
in the same silk she had worn in the 
day. They went in, and the door 
was closed and the bolt slipped as 
before. 

Ten minutes, and Sara came out 
again alone. Neal could tell who it 
was by the rustling of the silk, but 
there was no light. She returned 
up-stairs to her room, but not before 
Neal had caught the sound of a heavy 
sob. 

The next to come forth was the 
visitor, without a candle still. Dr. 
Davenal opened the hall door and let 
him out. Neal with his quick move- 
ments glided round to his post of ob- 
servation in the front garden, and 
was just in time to see him go through 
the gate, the cap drawn over his face 
and the gray woollen scarf muffled 
around him. 


114 


OSWALD OKAY. 


^ CHAPTER XYL 

COMMOTION. 

If e\rer the signs of misery, of 
despair, of terror, were depicted on a 
human face, they were on Dr. Dave- 
naPs as he sat that night in his study. 
He was a man who had received 
some great shock : a shock that struck 
a species of paralysis alike to the 
heart and to the frame. His arms 
hung down listlessly, his head was 
bent, his fixed eyes had a wild, anxi- 
ous look, most foreign to the usual 
calm of the composed surgeon. An 
hour and a quarter had he thus sat 
since the departure of that midnight 
visitor who had brought with him so 
much apparent mystery, so much woe, 
and now the house clock was striking 
one. The sound did not arouse Dr. 
Davenal ; he sat on in terrified de- 
spair. 

The wax taper, unheeded, unlooked 
at, stood on a side table where it had 
been accidently put. It had burnt 
nearly to the socket, and it now began 
to spurt and gutter with a great 
light ; the signs of its end. That 
awoke Dr. Davenal from his reverie. 
The prospect of being left in the dark 
was not a convenient one : and he 
tore a bit of paper from a journal 
lying near and essayed to light the 
gas, completely forgetting that it had 
been turned off at the main. 

* Finding his mistake, he stood a 
moment with his hand to his temples, 
as if endeavoring to collect himself, 
and then opened the door of his bed- 
room. Candles always stood there 
on the mantel-piece ready for light- 
ing, and he brought one forward and 
succeeded in catching a light for it 
from the dying taper. 

This had the effect of completely 
arousing him. He looked at his 
watch, then held the candle to a book- 
shelf, whence he selected a local rail- 
way-guide, and sat down at the table 
to consult it. 

Nothing until the morning he 
exclaimed, in a tone that might have 
been one of vexation but for its deeper 


pain. Stay, though I Yes, there is. 
There’s the train that passes here at 
3 '20 for Merton : and I should find a 
train on from thence. Then I must 
go by it : there’s no time to be lost, 
if this unhappy business is to be sup- 
pressed. Twenty minutes past three ; 
and now it is one : I can lie down for 
an hour and a half.” 

He went at once into his bedroom, 
took off his coat, and lay down on the 
outside of the bed. There was no 
fear of his oversleeping himself : sleep 
for a troubled mind in its first shock, 
troubled as was Dr. Davenal’s, is out 
of the question. 

Rest also seemed to be. He could 
not lie. He tossed and turned un- 
easily on the counterpane, and finally 
sprung off it with a groan of agony, 
and took to pacing the room. Neal, 
who was regaling his ear at the 
chamber-door, could hear every foot- 
fall, every sigh of the distressed heart. 
Never more, never more in this 
world, would the heart of Richard 
Davenal lose its care. 

Neal was not in the habit, with all 
his ferreting propensities, of sitting up 
at night to pursue them ; but this 
night was an exceptional one. To 
say that Neal was astonished, con- 
founded at what had taken place, at 
the knowledge he believed he had ac- 
quired, would be saying little, in com- 
parison with its effect upon his mind. 
He did not love his master ; he did 
not like him ; it may not be going too 
far to say that he hated him ; for 
Neal’s instinct had taught him that 
his master partially saw through him, 
partially suspected the villain that he 
was. But to believe him capable of 
deliberately destroying one of his 
patients, was in point of fact almost 
too great a stretch for even Neal. 
Until that night Neal could not have 
believed him capable of any wrong 
act ; he gave him credit for honor and 
virtue while he disliked him : but he 
did in truth now believe that Dr. Dave- 
nal had wilfully killed Lady Oswald. 
That is, that he had given her the 
chloroform deliberately, knowing it 
would probably take away her life. 


OSWALD CRAY. 


115 


Neal hoped to arrive at the why and 
the wherefore of this mysterious affair, 
and he thought nothing of sitting up 
the night to do it, if by that means he 
might gain any satisfactory solution. 
It must be confessed he was utterly 
stunned, and could not see nor under- 
stand yet with any clearness. He 
was like a man who is struck violently 
on the head and looks around him in 
stupid helpless maze, as if he saw a 
dead wall before him. A shock to 
the head and a shock to the mind will 
bear for the passing moment the same 
apparent results. 

Dr. Davenal paced his room, his 
two rooms, in fact, for the door was 
open between them, and he passed 
from one to the other in his restless 
wanderings and mental agony. Soon 
after two he began to wash and dress 
himself ; that is, he changed some of 
his clothes, and poured out a wash- 
hand basin of cold water and splashed 
his face with it. He put on a pair of 
boots ; he searched for his gloves ; he 
looked out an overcoat : and then he 
stood for a few minutes and thought. 

Lifting the writing-desk from under- 
neath the table, where you may re- 
member it was kept, he unlocked it, 
and was for some little time examin- 
ing certain papers it contained. Some 
of these he put in his pocket, and then 
he locked the desk and replaced it. 
Next he sat down to write a note ; 
just a line or two. 

It was getting on past the half hour 
then. He opened the door and went 
forth from his room. Neal, who had 
heard him coming, peeped from his 
pantry and saw him turn to the stairs, 
the candle in one hand, a note held in 
the other. Neal cautiously stole for- 
ward a step or two, and looked and 
listened. 

‘He was down-stairs again instantly ; 
he had only gone to the first floor, and 
had not opened any door, or Neal 
must have heard it : had not, in fact, 
been away long enough to open one. 
The note was gone from his hand, and 
Neal wondered where he had left it. 

He went into the study, and came 
out without the light, an over-coat on. 


and his hat in his hand. The moon- 
light shone in now through the fan- 
light over the front door, and Neal 
could see this much. He appeared to 
be coming towards the pantry. Neal 
silently closed the door and slipped 
the noiseless bolt. Neal took very 
good care to keep his own locks and 
bolts well oiled. 

Dr. Davenal essayed to open the 
pantry door, but found it fastened. 
He shook it, knocked at it, not over 
gently. Neal, too great a diplomatist 
to be taken at a loss, flung off his coat, 
waistcoat, and slippers, threw back 
his braces, rumpled his hair, and 
opened the door to his master with the 
air of a man just aroused from his bed 

Why do you sleep with your door 
locked, Neal — and the question was 
put in an imperative tone. 

'' I — it is but very rare that I do, 
sir. I must have shot the bolt last 
night without thinking of it.’^ 

“ I won^t have it done. Nobody 
shall sleep in my house with a locked 
door. It is a dangerous habit. Were 
a fire to take place, and the sleeper a 
heavy one, he might not be aroused 
in time. Don’t do it again. Neal,” 
he continued, changing his tone, “ I 
am summoned away farther than usual. 
I don’t care to disturb Miss Davenal 
— you can tell them to-morrow morn- 
ing. I shall not be home all day.” 

Have you to go far, sir ?” inquired 
Neal. 

“ Yes. I don’t expect to be home 
all day, I tell you, and that’s why I 
bid you inforn; them. Nobody is to 
sit up for me to-morrow night : I 
may be detained longer. Tell Miss 
Davenal so.” 

Yery well, sir,” replied Neal. 

Is the carriage ready for you ?” 

Neal put this cunningly. He felt 
sure his master was not going in the 
carriage. 

^'I don’t require the carriage. 
That’s all, Neal ; you can go to bed 
again. I was obliged to disturb you. ” 

Dr. Davenal turned, walked straight 
to the front door, and let himself out 
at it, closing it securely after him. 
Neal waited a moment, re-arranged 


116 


OSWALD CRAY. 


his attire a little, and then stepped to 
the front door and drew the heavy 
bolt across it. No danger now of his 
master’s coming in with his latch-key 
to pounce upon him. 

Neal got a light, went into the study 
and took a leisurely survey. He was 
scarcely rewai^ed. There was noth- 
ing whatever lying about, more than 
on other mornings : no signs remained 
of the stranger’s visit, not a trace that 
could betray any disturbance on the 
part of Dr. Davenal. The sherry and 
biscuits were put up : Neal walked 
across the dining-room and found them 
in the sideboard, just as he had left 
them on the previous night. The glass 
used stood on it. Neal solaced him- 
self with some of the sherry, and went 
back to the study. 

The old cloth was undisturbed on 
the table, the blotting-book and ink- 
stand lying on it. Neal looked through 
the book, but received no satisfaction. 
He examined the pens, and saw that 
in one the ink was not yet dry. In 
the bed-room the clothes which his 
master had taken off lay about : Mr. 
Neal en passant visited the pockets 
and found them empty : and the bed 
was pressed on the outside, but had 
not been slept in. That curious visit 
in the night might have been a dream, 
for all there was left to tell of it. 

But there’s that note yet,” thought 
Neal. What did he take it up-stairs 
for, and where did he leave it ?” 

Stealing up the stairs in his stock- 
inged feet, and shading the light with 
his hand, Neal came to the vestibule, 
and looked on the table. He looked 
on the stand, which held a beautiful 
statue in marble, he looked up even 
at the frames of the pictures ; he 
looked everywhere. But there was 
no letter. 

I’m positive he did not stop long 
enough to open a door !” ejaculated 
Neal, rather nonplussed. 

A bright thoufght struck him. He 
bent down, still shading the light with 
his hand, and peered under Miss Sara 
Davenal’s door. And then came Neal’s 
reward. He saw the corner of some- 
thing white quite close to him, not 


pushed entirely beyond the door. Dr. 
Davenal, not to disturb his daughter, 
had left his letter for her in that 
way. 

Neal took out his pen-knife, and 
with its help succeeded, by dint of 
perseverance and ingenuity, in draw- 
ing back the note. He stole down- 
stairs with it, and into his own chains 
her. A little more ingenuity with the 
pen-knife, and the envelope, not yet 
fully dry, came open. Neal had 
obtained an insight into some secrets 
in his life, but never one so weighty 
as this, never one that touched on 
that ugly word “ murder,” which was 
running through Neal’s mind : and 
his usually impassive face became 
streaked with the scarlet of excite- 
ment. 

“ My dear Child : 

“Business connected with this 
most unhappy secret obliges me to go 
away for a day, perhaps two. I shall 
leave a message with Neal. You 
need not appear to know any thing 
when he delivers it. Don’t talk of 
my absence to any one if you can 
help it “R. D.” 

There was not so very much to be 
made out of that, and the scarlet 
streaks faded again from Neal’s dis- 
appointed face. “ This most unhappy 
secret,” he repeated over twice, as if 
the words bore some euphonious 
sound. Whatever might be the secret, 
it was evident that Miss Sara Davenal 
had been made cognisant of it ; and 
Neal rather rejoiced in the pill it 
must be for her, for he liked his young 
mistress not one whit better than he 
liked his master. He read the note 
again, refastened it in the envelope, 
stole up-stairs to push it under the 
door, and then retired to his bed. 

Meanwhile, Dr. Davenal was walk- 
ing along the streets of the town, 
lying calm and still in the moonlight. 
Not with any hurried tread ; rather 
with a slow one. In his restlessness 
of mind, he had come out sooner than 
he need have come ; but bodily action 
is a relief to mental anguish. 


OSWALD CRAY. 117 


Good-night, doctor ! Or rather 
morning — for that’s what it is.” 

The salutation came from one of the 
general practitioners of the town, a 
hard-worked apothecary, whose busi- 
ness took him abroad a good deal at 
night. He was hastening up a side- 
street, near the town-hall, and Dr. 
Davenal had not observed him. 

‘‘Ah, is it you, Smithson ! A fine 
night, is it not ?” 

“ All nights are pretty near the 
same to mo,” returned Mr. Smithson. 
“ I see too much of them. I wish 
folks would be so accommodating as 
to choose the day-time to be ill in. 
It’s not often we see you abroad at 
night, though, doctor !” 

“Not often. We can’t help it some- 
times, you know. Good-night.” 

They were bound different ways. 
The doctor had only walked a few 
yards, when Mr. Smithson came run- 
ning back. 

“ Dr. Davenal, what is the truth 
about Lady Oswald ? I hear she’s 
dead.” 

“ She is — unhappily.” 

“ And the report going about is, 
that she died from the effects of chloro- 
form ! Could not rally after inhaling 
it.” 

“Ah, it’s a sad thing,” replied the 
doctor ; “a grievous thing. There’s 
the dark side in these new discoveries 
of our practice : sacrificing the few 
while blessing the many. Good-night, 
I say. I can’t stop.” 

“It’s true, then, that it was the 
chloroform ?” 

“ Yes, it’s true.” 

Dr. Davenal increased his pace : he 
was in no mood for questioning, and 
this in particular was painful to him. 
A short while, and he stood before 
the abbey, looking up at its windows. 
He was sorry to disturb Mark, but he 
deemed it was necessary, and he rang 
the night bell. 

A new bell which Mark Cray had 
caused to be placed in the house since 
he took it, and which rang himself 
up, not his household. Dr. Davenal 
waited, but the ring was unanswered, 


and he rang again, with the like re- 
sult. 

A third summons brought Mark to 
the window, half asleep still. “ If 
that’s the way you are going to let 
your night applicants ring, Mark Cray, 
almost as good not put up the bell.” 

Mark Cray could scarcely believe 
his eyes when he saw who was tlx* 
speaker. “I was in a heavy sleep,’' 
he answered. “ Did ^’^ou ring more 
than once ?” 

A heavy sleep ! Truly Dr. Dav- 
enal marvelled at the words. He 
marvelled that sleep could have visited 
Mark Cray that night, after his share 
in its fatal work. 

“ What is the matter ?” asked Mark. 
“Am I wanted ?” 

“ It is I who want you,” said the 
doctor. “ I’ll say a word to you if 
you’ll come down. I am called out 
of town.” 

Mark attired himself sufficiently to 
go down, which he did in a state of 
wonder. He had never received a night 
visit from Dr. Davenal : it was quite 
out of the usual order of things, and he 
would about as soon have expected to 
find a live kangaroo waiting upon 
him. He opened the front door and 
they stepped into the large parlor. 

“ Who is ill ?” inquired Mark. 
“Are you called out far ?” 

“ I am going out on a little private 
business of my own. The train for 
Merton will be through presently, and 
I shall take it. If 

“ Why did you not tell me last 
night ?” interrupted Mark. 

“ Because 1 did not then know I 
should have to go. You must take 
my patients for me. AVTiat I partic- 
ularly wished to say to you was 
about the inquest. They can’t call it 
for to-morrow — that is, to-day — Mon- 
day ; but I think they are sure to hold 
it on Tuesday. If I am not back ” 

“ What inquest ?” interrupted Mark, 
wonderingly. 

“ Tlie inquest on Lady Oswald.” 

“ My goodness ! Do you think 
they’ll get up an inquest over her ?” 

“Of course they will. What are you 


118 


OSWALD CRAY. 


dreaming of? The remote cause of 
her death was the accident to the train. 
I am not quite sure of being back. I 
expect to be home on Tuesday morn- 
ing early : but it is possible I may be 
detained a little longer. If I am not 
back, Mark, you will be the only 
witness — at least, the only one who 
can speak as to the facts of the death. 
Let me advise you to say as little as 
possible. Volunteer no information ; 
answer- their questions briefly ; and 
don’t get into a long-winded narration, 
as you are apt to do, otherwise you 
may betray yourself. You will not 
mistake me,” Dr. Da venal added. 

I have always been open, truthful, 
candid as the day ; and if I so advise 
now, it is in your interest. I was 
thinking this over a great deal last 
evening after I left you, and I see that 
it is essential for your good name in 
your profession that the facts of the 
case should not be made known. 
Do not suppose I advise you to a 
direct deviation from the truth ; noth- 
ing of the sort. ‘ Chloroform was 
administered with a view to lessen her 
sufferings, and she never rallied from 
it,’ is all you need say. Similar cases 
are unhappily not unknown. They 
are, I fear, not very uncommon ; and 
the coroner will not be likely to exact 
minute particulars, or inquire whether 
you gave it her, or whether I did.” 

Mark Cray nodded. He wagj ner- 
vously and incessantly pushing back 
bis hair. 

“ I know how fond you are of talk- 
ing,” resumed Dr. Davenal, “there- 
fore I deemed it well to give you this 
caution. To tell the truth, I had 
rather not be at the inquest, and shall 
not be sorry if I can’t get back.” 

“Are you going away on purpose ?” 
suddenly asked Mark, who was much 
given to leap to conclusions. 

“ Certainly not. I am going on an 
important matter of my own. But I 
don’t want the town to concern itself 
with my private affairs : so you need 
not let it be known that I am not with 
a patient.” 

“ I shan’t say any thing to the 
contrary,” said Mark. “ Let people 


think what they will : they are a set 
of busy-bodies at the best.” 

Dr. Davenal departed. And Mr. 
Cray went back to his room, sleepy 
still, but wondering what could have 
called away the doctor so suddenly to 
a distance. No letter could have 
arrived in the middle of the night, 
Mark argued : and a suspicion crossed 
his mind that he was, in spite of his 
denial, going away to avoid the in- 
quest. 

The doctor walked over to the 
station, there to await the train. He 
had given this caution, as to Mark’s 
testimony at the inquest, entirely from 
his good feeling towards him, his 
solicitude for his welfare. For him- 
self he did hope he should not be back 
for it. Inconvenient questions might 
be asked. But he had a matter of 
graver importance to think of than the 
inquest : a matter that was weighing 
down his heart with its dread. Of 
all the passengers that train contained, 
whirling on its way to Merton, not 
one had the sickening care to battle 
wdth, that was distracting the flourish- 
ing and envied physician. 

The first to enter the breakfast- 
room that morning at Dr. Davenal’s 
was his sister. The meal was always 
laid in the dining-room. Miss Dav- 
enal wore her usual morning costume, 
a gown of that once fashionable but 
now nearly obsolete material, called 
nankin — or nankeen, as some spell it. 
It was not made up fashionably, but 
in the old scant style, and it made 
Miss Davenal’s tall spare form look 
taller and sparer. Sara followed, in a 
flowing dress of delicate sprigged 
muslin, and she took her seat at once 
at the breakfast table. 

“ Is your papa out of his room, yet, 
do you know ?” asked Miss Davenal. 

“I have not seen him,” replied 
Sara, a faint red tinging her pale face 
at the half-evasive answer. Yery pale 
she looked : ominously pale. Had 
Miss Bettina been gifted with preter- 
natural penetration, she might have 
detected that some great dread was 
upon her. 

But Miss Bettina was on that 


OSWALD CRAY. 


119 


morning especially self-occupied. On 
the previous Saturday Dr. Davenal 
had told her that certain country 
friends were coming into Hallingham 
on that day, Monda}^, and he should 
invite them to dinner ; or else that he 
had invited them : in her deafness she 
did not catch which. She had re- 
plied by asking him what he would 
have for dinner, and he said they 
would settle all that on Monday 
morning. Monday morning was now 
come ; and Miss Bettina, a punc- 
tilious housekeeper, accustomed to 
have every thing in order and to 
treat visitors liberally, was on the 
fidget to make the arrangements, and , 
waited impatiently for Dr. Davenal. 
Watton, a fidget also in the domestic 
department, liking at any rate to get 
her orders in time, had come in with 
Miss Davenal. 

Miss Davenal rang the bell : an in- 
timation to Neal that they were ready 
for the coffee. She turned to the table, 
and the first thing that struck her 
sharp eyes in its arrangements was, 
that only two breakfast cups were on 
it. 

'^What is Neal thinking of this 
morning she exclaimed. 

I don’t fancy my master is stirring 
yet,” observed Watton. I have not 
heard him.” 

Nonsense I” returned her mistress. 

When did you ever know your mas- 
ter not stirring at eight o’clock ?” 

Not often, ma’am, it’s true,” was 
Watton’s answer. ‘^But it might 
happen. I know he was disturbed in 
the night.” 

Sara looked up with a half-fright- 
ened glance. She dropped her head 
again, and began to make scores on 
the cloth with a silver fork. 

It was the oddest thing,” began 
Watton — and she was speaking in 
the low clear tones which made every 
word distinct to Miss Davenal. “ Last 
night I was undressing with the blind 
up without a candle, for the moon was 
light as day, when I saw a man turn 
in at the gate, and I said to myself, 

‘ Here com.es somebody bothering for 
master I’ He made a spring to the 


side and crouched himself amid the 
laurels that skirt the rails by the lane, 
and stopped there looking at the 
house. ^ Very strange I’ I said to my- 
self again ; ‘ that’s not the way sick 
folks’ messengers come in.’ After a 
minute he walked on, brushing close 
to the shrubs, afraid I suppose of be- 
ing seen, and I heard him tap at the 
window of the doctor’s consulting- 
room. Ma’am, if ever I thought of a 
robber in my life, I thought of one 
then, and if it hadn’t been for my 
presence of mind I should have rose 
the house with niy screams — ” 

Be silent, Watton !” sharply inter- 
, rupted Miss Davenal. Look there ! 
You are frightening her to death.” 

She had extended her finger, point- 
ing at Sara. Sara, her face more like 
death than life, in its ghastly white- 
ness, was gazing at Watton, her eyes 
strained, her lips apart, as one under 
. the influence of some great terror. 
Was she afraid of what might be 
coming ? It looked so. 

“ There’s nothing to be alarmed at, 
Miss Sara — ” 

Don’t tell it : don’t tell it,” gasped 
Sara, putting up her hands. It 
does frighten me.” 

“ But indeed there is nothing to be 
frightened at, as you’ll hear, Miss 
Sara,” persisted the woman. “ It’s a 
fact that I was a little frightened my- 
self, one does hear of housebreakers 
getting into houses in so strange a 
manner, and I went out of my room 
and leaned over the banister and list- 
ened. It was all right, for I heard 
the doctor open the hall door and 
take the man into his consulting-room, 
and shut himself in with him. How 
long the man stopped, and who he 
was, I can’t tell ; he did not go away 
while I was awake — but, ma’am, 
that’s how I know my master was 
disturbed in the night.” 

Watton !” — and as Sara spoke her 
cheeks became crimson, her voice im- 
perative — ‘^do you deem that it lies 
in your service here to watch the 
movements of your master, and to 
comment upon them afterwards ?” 

The moment the words had left her 


120 


OSWALD CRAY. 


lips, she felt how unwise they were : 
but she had so sjwken in her per- 
plexity, her soreness of heart. Watton 
turned her eyes on her young mistress 
in sheer amazement. 

Watch my master's movements ! 
Why, Miss Sara, 3^ou oan^t think I’d 
do such a thing. I watched to — if I 
may so say — protect my master ; to 
protect the house, least harm should 
be meant it. Decent folk don’t come 
in at night as that man came.” 

Neal had entered, and was arrang- 
ing the breakfast things on the table. 
Miss Davenal drew his attention to 
the number of the cups. 

It is quite right, ma’am. The 
doctor went out in the middle of the 
night, at least about two in the morn- 
ing, and he charged me to tell you he 
should be away all day ; perhaps all 
night, too. Nobody is to sit up for 
him.” 

Where’s be gone ?” asked Miss 
Bettina. 

Neal could not tell. Ilis master had 
said he was going to a distance. But 
Miss Bettina could not make it out at 
all, and she asked question upon ques- 
tion. How had he gone ? The car- 
riage was not out. Walked away on 
foot, and said he was going to a dis- 
tance and might not be home for a 
day and a night ? It was the most 
mysterious, extraordinary proceeding 
she ever heard of. ‘‘ Did you see or 
hear any thing of a strange man com- 
ing in ill the night ?” she asked of 
Neal. 

No, ma’am,” replied Neal, with 
his usual impassibility. “ I see my 
master’s bed has not been slept in ; 
and he has taken an over-coat with 
him.*” 

Sara lifted her burning face. It 
was as the face of one stricken with 
fever. 

Let it rest ; let it rest, Aunt Bet- 
tina ! Wait until papa returns, and 
ask particulars of him. If patients 
require him at a distance, it is liis duty 
to go to them.” 

The last words were spoken defi- 
antly ; not at her aunt, but at the 
servants. She felt on the very verge 


of desperation. What disastrous con- 
sequences might not this proclamation 
of the night’s work bring forth ! 

“Let it rest!” retorted Miss Bet- 
tina. “ Yes, that is what you young 
and careless ones would like to do. 
Look at my position ! The responsible 
mistress of this house, and left in un- 
certainty whether people are coming 
to dinner or whether they are not. 
Your papa must have gone clean out 
of his wits to go olf and not leave 
Avord. ” 

“ You can fix upon a dinner as well 
as papa can. Aunt Bettina.” 

“ Fix upon a dinner ! It’s not that. 
It is the not knowing whether there’s 
to be a dinner fixed upon ; whether 
people are invited, or not, to eat it.” 

When Miss Davenal was put out 
about domestic arrangements it took a 
great deal to put her in again. Neal 
and Watton were questioned and 
cross-questioned as to the events of 
the night, and breakfast was got over 
in a commotion. Sara shivered with 
a nameless fear, and wondered whether 
that dreadful secret might not become 
known. 

It was a secret which bore for Sara 
Davenal all the more terror from the 
fact that she was but imperfectly ac- 
quainted with its nature. Dr. Dave- 
iial had seen fit for certain reasons to 
call her down to his room, and she 
had there seen the ominous visitor ; 
but the particulars had been kept from 
her. That there existed a secret, and 
a terrible one, which might burst at 
any hour over their heads, bringing 
with it disgrace as well as misery, she 
had been obliged to learn ; but its pre- 
cise nature she was not told ; was not 
allowed, it may be said, to guess at. 
Dr. Davenal so far spared her. He 
spared her from the best of motives, 
forgetting that suspense is, of all hu- 
nmn pain, the worst to bear. 

With the exception of Avhat that 
little note told her, which she saw lying 
inside her door when she rose in the 
morning, she knew nothing of the mo- 
tives of her father’s journey ; where he 
had gone, or .why he had gone. She 
only knew it was imperative that that 


OSWALD CRAY. 


121 


night’s visit to the house should remain 
a secret, uncommented upon, un- 
glanced at. And now the servants 
knew of it — had seen the stranger come 
in— and they might talk about it, in 
doors and out ! No wonder that Sara 
Davenal shivered ! — that she grew 
sick at heart ! 

- 

CHAPTER XYIL 

GOING DOWN TO THE FUNERAL. 

The commotion in the town rose 
that morning to its height ; it equalled 
the commotion at Miss Davenal’s 
breakfast-table. But not from the 
same exciting cause. The one was 
caused by the curious absence of Dr. 
Davenal ; the other by the death of 
Lady Oswald. 

She had lived so long amongst them ; 
had been, so to say, the head of the 
social and visiting community of Hal- 
lingham ! A great lady once had been 
the Lady Oswald of Thorndyke. Had 
she died in the common course of na- 
ture, after weeks or months of illness, 
it would still have created a stir ; but 
to have died from the inhaling of chlor- 
oform consequent upon the railway 
accident, caused very great and un- 
wonted excitement. People were 
shocked at her death ; they mourned 
for the somewhat eccentric old lady 
whom they had seen driven through 
their streets in her close carriage for 
years ; but they never cast so much 
as a shadow of reproach on the doctors 
who might be said to be, however un- 
wittingly, the authors of it. They 
railed at the chloroform, calling it un- 
certain, dangerous stuff; but not the 
slightest reflection was thrown on the 
judgment which had caused her to in- 
hale it. 

Mark Cray was beset with questions 
and remarks, especially from his med- 
ical brethren in the town. In Dr. 
Davenal’s absence people flew to him 
for particulars. He remembered the 
doctor’s caution, and said as little as 


possible. It was an unpleasant sub- 
ject to speak of, he observ’'ed to them, 
they c^uld understand that. But the 
curious questioners only understood it 
partially, and rather wondered why 
Mr. Cray should be so chary of his in- 
formation. 

The inquest took place on the Tues- 
day — as Dr. Davenal had surmised it 
would. It was held quite as a matter 
of course ; not with a view to elicit 
the cause of death, that was already 
known ; simply because the law ren- 
dered an inquest obligatory. 

The doctor was not back in time for 
it, and Mr. Cray was the principal 
witness. The operation had been 
most satis^ctorily performed by Dr. 
Davenal, he testified, but Lady Os- 
wald did not rally from the effects of 
the chloroform. They had tried every 
means to arouse her without result. 
The coroner presumed the chloroform 
had been administered with all due 
caution ; he felt persuaded it would be 
by so experienced a surgeon as Dr. 
Davenal. Certainly, was the answer 
of Mark Cray. It was given her with 
the best of motives ; to spare her acute 
suffering ; and no one could more bit- 
terly regret the result than they did. 
It was impossible to foresee, he con- 
tinued, that this great blessing — yes, 
he must still call it so — to suffering 
humanity, which had spared anguish 
to thousands, perhaps he might say 
had spared lives, would have an oppo- 
site effect upon Lady Oswald, and 
bring death to her instead of relief. 
He had never for one moment in his 
own judgment doubted the expediency 
of giving it to her ; were the thing to 
happen again — the result being hidden 
from him — he should do the same. 

Every word that Mark Cray said 
had its weight, and was appreciated. 
The death was regarded as a pure 
misfortune, a sort of accident that 
could not be prevented by poor human 
foresight, and for which blame was at- 
tachable to no one ; and the verdict 
was in accordance with this. 

The only one on whom the facts 
were yet destined to make an unpleas- 
ant and unsatisfactory impression was 


122 


OSWALD CRAY. 


Mr. Oswald Cray. The first intima- 
tion of Lady Oswald’s death reached 
him through the Times newspaper. 
As junior in the firm, he lived in the 
house in Parliament Street, the senior 
partners preferring residences out of 
town. The chief part of the house 
W’as devoted to their business pur- 
poses, and Mr. Oswald Cray had but 
two or three rooms for his private use. 
On the Thursday morning, the Times 
was brought to him as usual while he 
was at breakfast. It was folded with 
the supplement outside, the deaths up- 
permost ; and his eye caught the word 
Oswald. 

He looked further, and nothing could 
exceed his surprise. He gazed at the 
announcement with a feeling of dis- 
belief almost as though he was in a 
dream. “ At her residence in Hall- 
ingham, Susan Hannah, Lady Oswald, 
aged seventy-one, widow of Sir John 
Oswald of Thorndyke.” 

The date of her death, probably by 
an oversight, had not been put in, and 
Oswald Cray was left to conjecture it. 
Certainly he did not suppose it had 
occurred so far back as on the previous 
Sunday, the day after he left Halling- 
ham. 

What had killed her ? The accident ? 
He had been given to understand that 
night, that she was not materially 
injured : he now supposed she must 
have been. Why had nobody written 
to him ? He would have been glad to 
have seen her for a final farewell, and 
would have thought nothing of his 
time and trouble in going down for 
that purpose. Mark might have writ- 
ten : he could not remember having 
corresponded with Mark in all his life, 
half brothers though they were ; but 
still Mark might have gone out of his 
way to drop him a line now. Parkins 
might have written ; in fact, he con- 
sidered it was Parkins’s duty to have 
written, and he should tell her so : 
and Dr. Davenal might have written. 
Of the three mentioned, Oswald Cray 
would soonest have expected the doc- 
tor to write, and the omission struck 
him as being somewhat singular. 


The post brought news. Amidst 
the mass of letters that came for the 
firm was one for himself. He saw the 
Hallingham post-mark and opened it 
at once. 

A look of blank disappointment, 
mingled with surprise, settled on his 
face as he read. It was not from Dr. 
Davenal, from Mark Cray, or from 
Parkins ; it gave him no details, any 
more than if he had been the greatest 
stranger to Lady Oswald. It was a 
formal intimation from the undertaker 
that her late ladyship’s funeral would 
take place on Friday, at eleven o’clock, 
and requesting his attendance at it, if 
convenient. 

“ Her funeral to-morrow !” ejacu- 
lated Oswald. “ Then she must have 
died almost immediately. Perhaps 
the very night I came up. Why 
couldn’t somebody have written ?” 

He arranged business matters so as 
to go down that afternoon, and arrived 
at Hallingham between six and seven 
o’clock. Giving his portmanteau to a 
porter, he went on to his usual place 
of sojourn, the Apple Tree.” It was 
an old-fashioned, plain, roomy house, 
whose swinging sign-board stood out 
before its door, and whose productive 
garden of vegetables and fruit stretched 
out behind it. Ho fashionable person 
would look at it twice. Oswald Cray 
had been recommended to it long ago 
as his place of sojourn in Hallingham, 
where his stay seldom lasted more 
than two days ; and he had found 
himself so comfortable, ^o quiet, so 
entirely at home, that he would not 
have exchanged it for the grandest 
hotel in Hallingham, had the said 
hotel graciously intimated that it 
would receive him for nothing. 

The host, whose name was John 
Hamos, came forward to receive him : 
a respectable, worthy man, with a 
portly person and red face, who might 
be seen occasionally in a white apron 
washing up glasses, and who waited 
on his guests himself. He and Oswald 
were the best of friends. 

‘‘ Good-evening, sir. My wife said 
you’d be down to-night or* in the 


OSWALD CRAY. 


123 


morning. We were sure you^d be at 
the burying. A sad thing, sir, is it 
not 

“ It is a very sad thing, John,^^ re- 
turned Oswald. “ I seem as if I 
could not believe it. It was only this 
morning that I received the tidings. 
What did she die of? The accident 
to the train 

‘^iSTo, sir, she didn’t die of that. 
Leastways, that was not the imme- 
diate cause of death, though of course 
it must be said to have led to it. She 
died from chloroform.” 

Died from — what did you say ?” 
asked Oswald, staring at the man. 

‘‘ From chloroform, sir.” 

From chloroform !” he repeated. 

I don’t understand.” 

And he looked as if he did not — as 
if it were impossible to take in the 
words or their sense. John Hamos 
continued : 

' “ It seems, sir, that on the Sunday 
it was discovered that her ladyship 
had sustained some internal injury — 
to the ribs, I believe, or nearabouts — 
and she had to submit to an oppera- 
tion. Chloroform was given her whil^ 
it was performed, and she never rallied 
from it.” 

Who gave her the chloroform ?” 

Dr. Davenal.” 

Dr. Davenal !” echoed Mr. Oswald 
Cray, and his accent of astonishment 
was so great, so unmistakable, that 
the landlord looked at him in surprise. 

Why he — he — ” 

What, sir ?” 

Oswald had brought his words to a 
sudden standstill. His face was one 
picture of doubt, of bewilderment. 

“ It could not have been Dr. Dave- 
nal.” 

Yes, it was, sir,” repeated John 
Hamos. “ Who else would be likely 
to undertake the operation but him ? 
He and Mr. Cray were together, but 
it was the doctor who performed it, 
of course.” 

But he did not give her the chlo- 
roform ?” 

Why, yes, he did, sir. He gave 
it for the best. As was said after- 
ward, at the inquest, they could not 


possibly foresee that what saved pain 
and was a blessing to thousands, 
would prove fatal to her ladyship.” 

“ Who said that at the inquest ? 
Dr. Davenal ?” 

“ Mr. Cray, sir. The doctor wasn’t 
present at the inquest, he was away 
from the town. He went away in the 
night, somebody said, just after the 
death ; was fetched out to some pa- 
tient at a distance, and didn’t get back 
here till — Wednesday morning, I think 
it was.” 

“ And she never rallied from the 
chloroform ?” 

“ Never at all, sir. She died under 
it.” 

Oswald Cray said no more. He 
went up to the bedroom that ^^^jal- 
ways used, there to wash off %e 
travelling dust. But instead of pro- 
ceeding at once to do so, he stood in 
thought with folded arms and bent 
brow, John Hamos’s information re- 
specting the chloroform troubling his 
brain. 

Why should it trouble him ? Could 
not he believe, as others did, that it 
was given in all due hope and con- 
fidence, according to the best judg- 
ment of the surgeons ? No, so far as 
regarded the chief surgeon, Dr. Dave- 
nal, he could not believe it, and the 
reason was this. 

On the night of the accident, when 
Dr. Davenal jumped into the carriage 
that was about to proceed to the 
scene, he took his seat by the side of 
Oswald Cray. They entered into 
conversation, and the topic of it was, 
not unnaturally, accidents in general. 
It led to the subject of chloroform, 
and Dr. Davenal expressed his opinion 
upon that new-fashioned aid to sci- 
ence, just as freely as he afterwards 
expressed it to Mark Cray. 

How strange are the incidents, the 
small events, that shape the course of 
human destiny ! But for that acci- 
dental conversation — and may it not 
be called accidental ? — half the trouble 
that is about to be related never 
would have taken place. And the 
cruel shr^dow that was waiting to, 
spread its wings over the days of 


124 


OSWALD CRAY. 


more than one wa3^rarer on the path 
of life would have found no spot to 
darken with its evil. 

Dr. Davenal spoke his opinion 
freel}^ to Oswald Cray with regard to 
chloroform. He did not deny it to 
be a great boon, sparing pain to many 
whose sufferings would otherwise be 
almost intolerable ; but he said that 
there were a few to whom he would 
as soon give poison as chloroform, 
for the one would be just as fatal as 
the other. And be instanced Lady 
Oswald. 

The unfortunate fact of Lady Os- 
wald being in the disabled train to 
which they were hastening, possibly 
one of the wounded, no doubt sug- 
gested her name to Dr. Davenal as an 
example. There were other people 
whom he attended — a few — to whom 
he deemed chloroform would be as 
pernicious as to Lady Oswald : but 
she was in question, as it were, that 
night, and he cited her. There must 
have been some fatality in it. 

^‘Shc is one, if I am any judge, 
who could not bear it : who would be 
almost certain not to survive its ef- 
fects,” were the words he used to Os- 
wald. “1 would as soon give Lady 
Oswald a dose of poison, as suffer 
chloroform to be given to her.” 

The words, spoken to Oswald only, 
and not to the other inmates of the 
carriage (who were busy talking on 
their own scores), had not made any 
particular impression upon him at the 
time, but they returned to his memory 
now with awakened force. He asked 
himself what it could mean. Dr. 
Davenal had distinctly told him, that 
the inhaling of chloroform would be 
as poison to Lady Oswald ; he was 
now assured by John Hamos that, 
not four-and-twenty hours subsequent 
to that conversation, he. Dr. Davenal, 
had himself administered chloroform 
to her. And the result was death. 
Death — as Dr. Davenal had expressed 
bis firm conviction it would be. 

Mr. Oswald Cray could only come 
to the conclusion that there must be 
some mistake in the statement of the 
facts as made to him. It was im- 


possible to arrive at any other con- 
clusion. That there was no mistake 
on his own part, as to the opinion ex- 
pressed to him by the doctor, he 
knew ; he recalled the very words in 
which it was spoken ; spoken de- 
liberately and elaborately. In regard 
to that, there was no mistake ; but he 
fancied he should find that there was, 
as to the chloroform having been 
given by Dr. Davenal : perhaps as to 
his having been present at the opera- 
tion. 

He quitted the “Apple Tree,” and 
bent his steps to Lady Oswald’s. 
Parkins came to him in a burst of 
grief. Parkins was — it has been said 
before — genuinely grieved at her 
lady’s death, and her grief showed it- 
self chiefly by breaking into a shower 
of tears with every fresh person she 
saw. One of the first questions put 
to her by Mr. Oswald Cray was as to 
her not having written to inform him 
of the jdeath. He wished to know 
why she had not. 

“ I don’t know why, sir,” she 
sobbed, “ except that I have been be- 
wildered ever since it happened. I 
have been as one out of my mind, sir, 
with the shock and the grief. I’m 
sure I beg your pardon for the neglect, 
but it never so much as struck me till 
yesterday, when the undertaker was 
here about the funeral. He asked 
who was to be invited to it, and then 
it came into my mind that you ought 
to have been wrote to, but I said 
perhaps Mr. Cray had done it.” 

“ Well, sit down while you talk, 
Parkins,” he said in a kind tone. “ I 
can understand that you have been 
very much shocked by it. Are any 
of Lady Oswald’s relatives here ?” 

“ There’s that ne})hew of hers, sir, 
the parson ; the poor gentleman that 
she’d send a little money to some- 
times. He heard of it accidental, he 
says, and came off at once with his 
brother. They got here this morning. 
Very nice people, l)oth of them, sir, 
but they seem very poor. They think 
no doubt that my lady’s money is left 
to them. I dare say it is. She ” 

“ I “wish to ask you a question or 


OSWALD CRAY. 


125 


two about the death, Parkins, he in- 
terrupted in a pointed manner. None 
could check undue topics with more 
dignity than he. “When was it dis- 
covered that Lady Oswald was se- 
riously injured 

“Not until, the Sunday, sir. Mr. 
Cray came home with her here when 
vshe was brought up from Hildon ; 
but I dare say you remember that, 
for you were at the station with her. 
He wanted to examine into her state 
then, but she was very obstinate, and 
persisted in saying sheM not be 
touched that night : that she wasn’t 
hurt. I fancy Dr. Davenal thought 
it was wrong of Mr. Cray not to have 
insisted upon it — but Mr. Cray him- 
self did not think there was any grave 
injury : he told me so then. The 
next morning I thought they’d both 
be here, Dr. Davenal and Mr. Cray ; 
but Mr. Cray came alone, the doctor 
it appeared had been sent for to 
Thorndyke ” 

“ To Thorndyke ?” involuntarily in- 
terrupted Oswald. 

“ Yes, sir, somebody was ill there. 
However, the doctor was back and up 
here in the afternoon. He had seen 
Mr. Cray, and he came to examine 
into her state for himself ; for it had 
been discovered then that she was 
worse injured than they thought. At 
first my lady said she’d not submit to 
the operation, which Mr. Cray had 
already told her must take place ; but 
Dr. Davenal talked to her, and she 
consented, and they fixed half-past 
five in the afternoon. Have you heard 
how she died, sir ?” broke off Parkins, 
abruptly. 

“ I have heard since I got here this 
evening that she died from the effects 
of chloroform.” 

“ And so she did, sir. And it’s a 
thing that I never shall understand 
to my dying day.” 

Parkins spoke the last words with 
a vehemence that superseded the sobs. 
Mr. Oswald Cray thought he did not 
understand it either ; but he did not 
$ay so. 

“In what way don’t you under- 
stand it ?” he asked quietly. 


“ How it was they came to give her 
the chloroform. I am quite certain, 
sir, that up to the very moment that 
the operation was ready to be begun, 
there was no thought of chloroform. 
It was not as much as mentioned, and 
if any chloroform had been in the 
room amidst the preparations, I must 
have seen it.” 

“ Were you present during the oper- 
ation ?” 

“ I was to have been present, sir ; 
but at the last moment I fainted dead 
off, and had to be taken from the room. 
We knew no more, any of us, till it 
was all over. Then we were called 
to by the gentlemen, and told what 
was the matter ; that my lady was 
sinking under the influence of the 
chloroform they had administered, and 
could not be rallied from it. And, a 
few minutes after, she died.” 

Oswald Cray remained for some 
moments silent. 

“ Was it Dr. Davenal who admin- 
istered it ?” he resumed at length. 

“No doubt it was, sir; they were 
together. ' It was Dr. Davenal who 
performed the operation. My lady 
said nobody should do it but Mr. 
Cray, and it was settled that it should 
be done by him ; but I suppose they 
thought at last it would be better to 
intrust it to the doctor. Any way, it 
was he who performed it.” 

“ What did Dr. Davenal — did Dr. 
Davenal say anything about the chlo- 
roform afterwards, or why they had 
used it ?” 

“ He didn’t say much, sir. He said 
what had been done was done for the 
best ; but he seemed dreadfully cut 
up. And so did Mr. Cray. The 
strangest thing to me is, why they 
used chloroform, when I saw no signs 
of their attempting to use it.” 

“ But they must have had it with 
them ?” 

“Well, of course they must, sir. 
It was not produced, though, while I 
was there. They said my lady grew 
agitated — it was Mr. Cray said that 
— that my falling down helped to 
agitate her ; but it will take a great 
deal to make me believe there was 


126 


OSWALD CRAY. 


any need for them to use chloroform. 
It has cost a good lady her life ; I 
know that. She had her little tem- 
pers and her fidgety ways, poor dear 
lady, but she was one of the best of 
mistresses. It’s just as if they had 
done it to kill her.” 

Did the words grate on the ear of 
Oswald Cray — as though they bore 
all too significant a meaning ? Not 
yet ; not quite yet. This testimony 
of the maid’s had confirmed beyond 
doubt that Dr. Da venal had been the 
chief and acting surgeon : how then 
reconcile that fact with the opinion 
expressed to him not many hours be- 
fore the death ? He could not tell ; 
he could not think ; he could not ac- 
count for it by any reasoning of any 
sort, subtle or simple. He was as 
one in a mazy dream, understanding 
nothing distinctly. 

When he quitted the house, he 
turned again and bent his steps to the 
abbey. Possibly he deemed Mark 
could solve his difficulties. Mark was 
not in, however, when he got there ; 
only Caroline. 

Mrs. Cray was in the large draw- 
ing-room. She and the tea-table, at 
which she sat waiting for Mark, looked 
quite lost in its space. The thought 
struck Oswald as he entered. It had 
been the home of his early childhood, 
the scene of occasional visits since 
that period, but he always thought 
that room larger and larger every 
time he entered it. It was at its 
window that he, a baby in arms, had 
been held by the side of his mother, 
when the grand people from Thorn- 
dyke in their carriage and four, her 
father and mother, would drive past 
and cast up their faces of stone. He 
had been too young to know any thing 
then, but afterwards, when he could 
begin to understand, these stories of 
the passing by of Sir Oswald Oswald 
were impressed upon him by his nurse. 
They remained amidst his most vivid 
recollections. But that he knew it 
was impossible to have done so — for 
his mother had died when he was too 
young, and there was no more stand- 
ing there after her deal’s to watch for 


Sir Oswald-rhe could have affirmed 
now that he remembered those times 
in all their full detail : the steady pace 
of the fine horses, the bedizened car- 
riage — in those days it was the fash- 
ion to have carriages bedizened — the 
servants in their claret liveries, the 
impassive faces of Sir Oswald and his 
lady. The fact was, it had all been 
described so often and minutely to the 
young child Oswald, that it remained 
on his memory as a thing seen, not 
heard. 

Mrs. Cray, gay in attire, wearied 
in countenance, was quite alone. She 
wore a low evening-dress of blue silk, 
with lace and fringes and trimmings ; 
and blue ribbons in her hair. Bather 
more dress than is necessary for a 
quiet evening at home ; but she was 
young and pretty and a bride, and — 
very fond of finery in any shape. Her 
weary face lighted up with smiles as 
she saw Oswald and rose to greet 
him : very, very pretty did she look 
then. 

I am so glad to see you ! I had 
grown tired waiting for Mark. He 
went out the moment he had swal- 
lowed his dinner — before he had swal- 
lowed it, I think — and he is not in 
yet. Shall I tell you a secret, Os- 
wald ?” 

Yes, if you please.” 

I am quite disappointed. I shan’t 
at all like being a doctor’s wife.” 

Her dark blue eyes were dancing 
with smiles as she spoke. Oswald 
smiled too : at the joke. 

It is true, Mr. Oswald Cray. I 
don’t speak against my own dear 
Mark : I’d not part with him : but I 
do wish he was not a doctor. You 
don’t know how little I see of him. 
He is in just at meals, and nqt always 
to them.” 

Oswald smiled still. '‘You had 
lived in a doctor’s house, Mrs. Cray, 
and knew the routine of it.” 

"My uncle’s house was not like 
this. Who can compare the great 
Dr. Davenal, at the top of the tree, 
waiting at home for his patients to 
come to him, to poor Mark Cray at 
the bottom, just begi'^ning to climb 


OSWALD CRAY. 


127 


it ? Things are different with them, 
Mr. Oswald. Mark has to be out, 
here and there and everywhere. At 
the infirmary, dancing attendance on 
interminable rows of beds one hour ; 
in some obscure corner of the town 
another, setting somebody’s leg, or 
watching a case of fever. Mark says 
it won’t go on quite as bad as it has 
begun. This has been an unusually 
busy week with him, owing to the 
doctor’s absence. He left home on 
Sunday night, and was not back until 
Wednesday. A great portion of Sun- 
day also he passed at Thorndyke.” 

‘^His patient must have been very 
ill to keep him away from Sunday 
until Wednesday,” remarked Oswald. 

“ To tell you the truth,” said Caro- 
line, dropping her voice in a manner 
that sounded rather mysteriously, we 
don’t think he was with a patient. 
We can’t quite make out why he went 
or where he went. He came here in 
the middle of the night, and rang up 
Mark. It was the night subsequent 
to Lady Oswald’s death — oh, Oswald I 
was not her death a shocking thing ?” 

Very,” was the answer, gravely 
spoken. 

“ When Mark came home that Sun- 
day evening and told me Lady Os- 
wald was dead, I cannot describe to 
you how I felt. At first I could 
not believe it; and then I went — I 
went into hysterics. It was very 
foolish, of course, for hysterics do no 
good, but I could not help it. You 
have come down to attend the funeral 
to-morrow, I suppose ?” 

Yes.” 

Well — I was telling you about 
my uncle. He came here in the 
middle of the night and rang up 
Mark, who went down to him. When 
Mark came up-stairs again he said 
Dr. Davenal was going away on some 
private errand which he had made a 
sort of secret of to Mark. I fancy Mark 
was only half awake and did not hear 
him clearly : all he understood was, 
that the doctor was going some- 
where by train unexpectedly; that 
Mark was to let it be assumed in the 
town that he was visiting a patient at 


a distance. Mark declared that he 
believed the doctor was only absenting 
himself to avoid attending the coro- 
ner’s inquest.” 

Why should Mark think that ? — 
Why should Dr. Davenal wish to 
avoid attending it ?” reiterated Os- 
wald, strangely interested, he scarcely 
knew why. 

'^I cannot tell you. I fancy the 
admission slipped from Mark inad- 
vertently, for he would not say a 
syllable more. The next day, Monday, 

I saw Sara. I asked her point blank 
where my uncle had gone, remarking 
that there seemed to be some little 
mystery connected with it, and she 
turned as white as death, and whis- 
pered to me not to talk so, to hold 
my tongue, for the love of heaven. 
You’ll take some tea, won’t you, 
Oswald ? I shall be so glad of an 
excuse for making it.” 

Oswald, almost mechanically, said 
he would take some, and she rang the 
bell for the urn. He began to think 
all this more and more strange : to 
ask himself what it tended to. Dr. 
Davenal had gone away to avoid the 
inquest ? — and his daughter when 
spoken to upon the subject had turned 
as white as the grave ? What did it 
mean ? 

Do you know the particulars of 
Lady Oswald’s death ?” he inquired, 
as he stirred his tea. 

Yes. Don’t you ? She died from 
chloroform. They deemed it neces- 
sary to give it to her, and she never 
rallied from it.” 

“ Who gave it to her ! Which of 
them ?” 

Which of them ?” repeated Caro- 
line, lifting her eyes and thinking the 
question, no doubt, a superfluous one. v 
“ They were both present, they would 
act in concert, one with the other. 

If you mean to cast blame on them, 
Oswald, I should say you must cast 
it conjointly. But they acted for the 
best.” 

I do not cast blame on them,” he 
answered. ^^I don’t understand the 
affair sufficiently yet to cast blame 
anywhere. It is a riddle to me.” 


128 


OSWALD CRAY. 


What is a riddle 

“ JIow Dr. — how they came to use 
chloroform at all.” 

“ Why ! it is in almost universal 
use now !” exclaimed Mrs. Cray, sur- 
prised at the remark. ‘‘There is no 
riddle in that.” 

Oswald did not press it. In his 
opinion there was a riddle ; one he 
began to think would not be easy of 
solution. He finished his tea in 
silence. By-and-by Mrs. Cray resumed. 

“ Mark seems not to like to talk of 
it. I asked him a great many ques- 
tions, as was natural, but he put me 
off, saying I should be falling into 
hysterics again. I told iiim that was 
nonsense, now the shock was over ; 
but he would not talk of it, seemed 
quite to wince when I pressed it. It 
was not a pleasant subject for him, he 
said. And of course it is not : and 
still less so for my uncle, whose 
authority sways Mark. However good 
their intentions were, it did kill her.” 

“ Will Mark be long, do you sup- 
pose inquired Oswald, breaking 
another long pause. 

“ As if I could tell, Oswald I I 
have been expecting him every minute 
this hour past. When I grumble at 
Mark for staying out so, he tells me I 
must blame his patients. Nay, but 
you are not going yet 1” she added as 
he rose. “ Mark is sure to be in soon.” 

“I cannot well stay longer now,” 
he answered. “ I shall see Mark in 
tlie morning. I suppose he is to at- 
tend the funeral ?” 

“ Of course he will. They will both 
attend it. I wish you would not 
liurry away I” 

He .repeated his apology and Caro- 
line rang the bell. In point of fact he 
wanted to call on Dr. Da venal. 


CHAPTER XYIII. 

CURIOUS DOUBTS. 

Scarcely had the door closed on 
Mr. Oswald Cray when he mot his 


brother. Mark was coming along at 
a quick pace. 

“Oswald, is it you I Have you 
been to the abbey ?” 

“ I have been taking tea with your 
wife, and waiting for you. She is 
nearly out of patience. Mark !” he 
continued, passing his arm within his 
brother’s and leading him a few steps 
away while he talked, “ what a shock- 
ing thing this is about Lady Os- 
wald I” 

“ Ay, that it is. So unexpected. 
Won’t you come in ?” 

“ Not again to-night. I want to 
know, Mark, how it was that chloro- 
form was given to her ?” 

“ If we had not deemed it for the 
best, we should not have given it,” 
was Mark’s answer. 

“But — surely Dr. Davenal did not 
deem it would be for the best ?” 

Mark turned and looked at him : a 
quick, sharp glance. “ What do you 
know about it ?” he asked. 

“II I know nothing about it : I 
want to know,” replied Oswald, think- 
ing the remark strange. “1 wish you 
would give me the full particulars, 
Mark. I cannot understand — I have 
a reason for not being able to under- 
stand — why chloroform should have 
been given to Lady Oswald ” 

“ We use chloroform very much 
now,” interrupted Mark. 

“Why it should have been given 
to Ladij Oswald, went on Oswald, 
with pointed emphasis, 

“ It was given to her. as it is given 
to others — to deaden pain.” 

“ Who performed the operation ?” 

“ The doctor.” 

There was a pause. When Oswald 
Cray broke it, his voice was low, his 
manner hesitating. “Mark, will you 
pardon me if 1 ask you a strange 
question ? — Do you believe from your 
very heart that when Dr. Davenal 
administered that chloroform to Lady 
Oswald, he did think it would be for 
the best ?” 

Hesitating as Oswald’s manner had 
been, Mark’s was worse. He grew 
on a sudden flushed and embarrassed. 

“ Won’t you answer me, Mark ?” 


OSWALD CRAY. 


129 


I — yes — of course we thought it 
would be for the best.” 

I asked, did he think it ?” 

Mark plunged into an untruth. 
Somewhat afraid of Oswald at the best 
of times, conscious that he was of a 
far higher standard in moral and in- 
tellectual excellence than himself, he 
desired to stand well with him, to 
enjoy his good opinion ; and perhaps 
there was not a single man inHalling- 
ham to whom Mark would not have 
preferred his unhappy mistake, in all 
its wilfulness, to become known, rather 
than to his brother. They were also 
playing at cross purposes j Oswald 
was seeking to learn how far Dr. 
Davenal had been to blame. Mark 
believed it was his own share of blame 
that was sought to be arrived at. 

Yes, he thought it. Dr. Davenal 
would not use chloroform, or any thing 
else, unless he believed it would be 
beneficial,” rapidly went on Mark. 

I never knew a man more successful 
in his treatment in a general way than 
he.” But for all the apparent readi- 
ness of the words they bore a certain 
evasiveness to Oswald^s ears. 

'' Tell me the truth, Mark, tell it me 
frankly,” he rejoined. Is there not 
some — some secret — I don’t know 
what else to call it — connected with 
this business ? ^ Something wrong 
about it ?” 'I 

For a mome i Mark Cray had to 
deliberate. He/was held at bay by 
the straightfor\Sard questions of his 
brother. And pis brother saw the 
hesitation. 

“ Oswald, it 3 of no use to press 
me upon this m/nter. You will readily 
conceive how s^re a one it is to myself 
and to Dr. rjbvenal. Had it been 
some poor rub ^ shing patient who had 
died through H, that poor stoker at 
th€^ Infirmary^^ior instance, it would 
not have been^of so much account ; 
but” 

Be silent, Hark I” burst from Os- 
wald with a I of anger. I will 
not listen to si^ch doctrine. The lives 
of the poor are' every whit es valuable 
as are the live's of the rich. You did 
not learn that 'rom Dr. Davenal.” 

8 


What I meant was, that there’d 
not be half the public fuss,” said Mark, 
looking little, and doing his best to 
explain away the impression given by 
his words. ‘‘I’m sure there has been 
enough fuss in the town since her 
death was known, but I have not 
heard of one single person casting 
blame on us. Why should you seek 
to cast it ? Errors in judgment are 
committed now and then in medical 
practice, just as they are in every thing 
else, and there’s no help for it ; they 
hapipen to the very best of us. If we 
could see the end of a thing at the 
beginning, it would be different ; but 
we can’t. Could its effects on Lady 
Oswald have been anticipated, we’d 
have seen the chloroform in the sea 
before it should have been given her. 
It was done for the best.” 

“ You think then that Dr. Davenal 
believed the giving it to her would be 
for the best ?” persisted Oswald, after 
listening patiently to the excited an- 
swer. 

Again came the perceptible hesi- 
tation in the manner of Mark ; again 
the flush of embarrassment rose to his 
cheek. Oswald noted it. 

“ I am quite sure that all the doctor 
ever did for Lady Oswald, he did for 
the ‘best,” and Mark Cray plucked up 
courage and spirit as he said this — 
‘'that night as well as other nights 
which had gone before it. I cannot 
think what you are driving at, Oswald. ” 

Oswald Cray determined to “ drive” 
no more. He believed it would be 
useless, so far as Mark was concerned. 
He could not quite make him out : 
but he believed it would be useless to 
try further. All Mark’s embarrass- 
ment, his evasion, his crusty unwil- 
lingness to speak frankly, Oswald set 
down to an anxiety to screen Dr. 
Davenal from the reproach of impru- 
dence. One more remark he did make. 
It arose to his mind as he was about 
to depart, and he spoke it on the spur 
of the moment. 

“ I understand you fancy that Dr. 
Davenal absented himself from Hal- 
lingham to avoid attending the coro- 
ner’s inquest.” 


130 


OSWALD CRAY. 


Where on earth did you hear 
that shouted Mark with a stare of 
surprise. 

“ Your wife mentioned it to me just 
now. 

Mark Cray waxed wroth. ‘‘ What 
idiots women are — the very best of 
them ! I shan’t be able to think my 
own thoughts next. Caroline knows 
I did not wish that repeated : it slipped 
from me without reflection.” 

*^It is ^ quite safe with me, Mark. 
She looks upon me, I suppose, as one 
of yourselves. But why should , Dr. 
Davenal have wished not to attend 
the inquest ?” 

Oh, for nothing, only he thought 
they’d be putting all sorts of ques- 
tions,” carelessly replied Mark. “It 
was a disagreeable thing altogether, 
and one of us was quite enough to 
attend. But, mind you, Oswald, I 
don’t really suppose he went for that: 
I make no doubt he had business out.” 
' “Well, good-night, Mark.” 

“ Grood-night. I wish you had come 
in.” 

Mark Cray stepped on to his house, 
and let himself in with his latch-key, 
thinking how much better the world 
would go on if women had not been 
endowed with tongues, and wondering 
excessively what possessed his brother 
to be taking up the death of Lady 
Oswald and putting these mysterious 
questions respecting it. 

Oswald stood a moment in thought, 
his face turned to the lighted station, 
to the intervening rails between, lying 
in the shade. Was it too late to pay 
a visit to Dr. Davenal ? 

He took out his watch. It was 
only a little past nine. Not at all too 
late for a call, and he turned his steps 
to the house, asked for Dr. Davenal, 
and was shown into the doctor’s room. 

Dr. Davenal was alone, pacing the 
carpet with heavy steps and a face 
that seemed to have all the care of the 
world marked on it. Oswald could 
not avoid being struck with that ex- 
pression of care : he had never seen 
the like upon the countenance of Dr. 
Davenal. 

Turning his head, he looked at Os- 


wald for the space of a minute as if 
not recognizing him. He was so 
deeply buried in his own thoughts 
that he could not immediately awake 
from them to every-day life. 

“ Good-evening, Dr. Davenal.” 

He took Oswald’s outstretched hand, 
and was himself again. Oswald sat 
down and the doctor too. But, after 
a few words, he rose, apparently in 
restlessness, and began to pace the 
room as before. 

“ Are you in any grief, doctor ?” 

“ Well — ^yes, I am,” was the reply^ 

“ Or perhaps I should rather say in 
vexation, for that is chiefly it. "We 
have had a line from Edward by the 
day post, and he expresses a doubt 
whether he shall be able to get down 
to say farewell. These young sol- 
diers grow careless of home ties, Mr. 
Oswald Cray.” 

“Not soldiers in particular, do they, 
sir ? It is a reproach that can be cast 
upon many others who live in the 
world.” 

“ And yet enslaved by it. True.” 

“I did not mean altogether that. 
Dr. Davenal. When does your son 
sail 

“ On Sunday morning, he says. He 
does not positively say he is n ot coming 
down, only gives a 4 int that he fears 
he cannot. What d I do with the 
letter ?” continued a doctor, looking 
round. “ I brouglu^i it in with me 
after dinner. Oh, Oiere it is,” he 
added, seeing it on 4 - side table, and 
giving it to Oswald. “You can read 
what he says. Sara pon’t mind. It 
is written for us all i ivwell as for her, * 
I expect. Edward U ,s never a vol- 
uminous correspondec t : his letters 
are generally bon^ymhlico.^^ 

Oswald saw it wbi."^ addressed to 
Miss Sara Davenal, ai,; began to read 
it. It was dated the p 1 i vious evening. 

1 ' 

“ My darling Sis'i n ; 

“We are in alv' the bustle and 
hurry of the start. CV iors have come 
at last, and we cmbi At, from South- 
ampton on Sunday morning. I hope 
I shall get down to you ^3 say good-by. 

1 I am not unmindful ol ^ ly promise to 


OSWALD CRAY. 


131 


do so, and will do all I can to keep it ; 
poor Dick used to tell me that I knew 
how to break promises better than I 
knew how to make them, but it shall 
not be my fault if you have to east 
that on me as a last reproach. To 
absent myself, even for an hour, is a 
difficult task now, but I will manage 
it, if possible. We have been worked 
off our heads and legs for the last few 
days. 

Love to all. I suppose Carry is 
fairly installed at the abbey ; wish 
her all good luck for me. Ever yours, 
in much haste, 

''E. F. Davenal.’’ 

You see,’^ said the doctor, halting 
and pointing to the letter, '^he em- 
phasises the word 'hope.’ 'I hope 
I shall get down.’ That very fact is 
sufficient to tell me that he knows he 
shall not get down, and these lines 
have been sent as a sort of prepara- 
tion for the final disappointment. And 
he is going out for years 1 But I 
won’t blame him : perhaps it is an 
impossibility for him to get away. He 
should have remained longer, though, 
when he came down for the wedding, 
and made it his farewell visit. I said 
so then.” 

Dr. Davenal began his walk to and 
fro again, a very slow, thoughtful walk. 
Oswald folded the letter and laid it 
on the table. 

" I have ever loved my children — 
I was going to say, passionately — Mr. 
Oswald Cray. I believe few parents 
can love as I have loved. I have 
made — I have made sacrifices for them 
which the world little recks of, and 
any thing like ingratitude touches me 
to the heart’s core. But in the midst 
of it I am the first to find excuses for 
them, and I say that Edward may not 
be at all to blame in this.” 

" I think it very likely that he is 
quite unable to get away, however 
much he may wish it,” observed Os- 
wald. 

" I think so too. I say I don’t 
blame him. Only one feels these 
things.” 

There ensued a silence A feeling 


of dislike had come over Oswald (and 
he could not trace it to any particular 
cause) to enter upon the subject of 
Lady Oswald. But he was not one 
to give way to these fanciful phases 
of feeling which appear to arise with- 
out rhyme or reason, and he was 
about to speak when the doctor fore- 
stalled him. 

" Lady Oswald’s death has brought 
you down, I presume ?” 

"Yes, I was in ignorance of it until 
this morning, when a formal invitation 
to attend the funeral reached me from 
the undertaker. I had just read the 
announcement of the death in the 
Times, How shocked I was, I can- 
not well express to you.” 

" It has shocked us all.” 

" Of course its reaching me in that 
abrupt manner, in the public column 
of deaths, did not tend to lessen the 
shock. I rather wonder you did not 
drop me a line yourself. Dr. Davenal.” 

" I was away afterwards. Called 
out to a distance, I did not get back 
for a day or two. Did Mark not 
yrite ?” 

" Nobody wrote. Neither Mark 
nor Parkins ; nor anybody else. As 
to Mark, he is;, as careless as the wind, 
and Parkins excuses herself on the 
plea of having been so bewildered. I 
can readily believe her. Dr. Davenal, 
she died, as I am given to understand, 
from the effects of chloroform !” 

"We thought, on the night of the 
accident, you know, that she was not 
seriously injured,” said Dr. Davenal. 
" At least Mark thought it : I had my 
doubts : bTlt I left him to see to her 
at her own desire. Unfortunately I 
was called out early on Sunday morn- 
ing. I was wanted at Thorndyke : 
and when I got back the injury had 
been ascertained, and an operation 
was found necessary. It was under 
that operation she died.” 

"But the operation was performed 
successfully ?” 

"Quite so.” 

" And what she died of was the in- 
haling of the chloroform ?” 

" It was.” 

<<But — I cannot understand why 


132 


OSWALD CRAY. 


cliloroform should have been given to 
her/^ deliberately proceeded Oswald. 

It was given to her,” was all the 
reply he obtained. 

“But — pardon me for recalling it 
to you, Dr. Davenal — do you remem- 
ber the very decided opinion you ex- 
pressed to me, when we were going 
down to the scene of accident, against 
giving chloroform to Lady Oswald ? 
We were speaking of its opposite 
effects upon different natures, and you 
cited Lady Oswald as one to whom, 
in your opinion, it might prove dan- 
gerous. You stated, that, so far as 
you believed, it would be neither 
better nor worse to her than poison.” 

Oswald waited for a reply, but the 
doctor made none. He was pacing 
the small room with measured tread, 
his hands in his pockets, his eyes bent 
on the carpet. 

“ Have you any objection to explain 
to me this apparent contradiction ? 
It is impossible to believe that one, 
whose opinion of chloroform in rela- 
tion to her was so fatal, would in a 
few hours cause her to inhale it.” > 

Dr. Davenal stopped in his walk 
and confronted Oswald. 

“ Have you seen Mark since you 
came down ?” 

“Yes.” 

“ And what does he say ?” 

“ Well, I don’t fancy he understands 
it much better than I do. He reiter- 
ates that it was given her for the best. 
In his opinion it may have been. But 
it surely could not have been in yours. 
Dr. Davenal ?” 

Dr. Davenal turned from (^swald 
to his pacing again. A strong temp- 
tation w^as upon him to tell Oswald 
the truth. Oh, that he h§,d I what 
years of suffering it would have saved I 

There were few people in the world 
whom he esteemed as he esteemed 
Oswald Cray. There was no one 
else in the world to whom he had ex- 
pressed this opinion of the unfitness of 
Lady Oswald as a subject for chloro- 
form, and the wish to explain, to ex- 
onerate himself, arose forcibly within 
him. The next moment he asked him- 
self why Mark Cray himself had not 


spoken. As he had not, it seemed to 
Dr. Davenal that it would be a breach 
of friendship, of partnership, for him 
to speak. Oswald was connected, too, 
with Lady Oswald, and might take 
up the matter warmly. No, he felt 
in his ever-considerate heart that he 
could not betray Mark, could not set 
one brother against the other. And 
he thrust the temptation from him. 

Oswald watched him as he walked, 
wondering at the silence. A silence 
which the doctor evidently did not 
feel inclined to break. 

“ Do you remember expressing this 
opinion to me. Dr. Davenal ?” 

“ Yes, I believe I did so express it.” 

“And yet you acted in diametrical 
opposition to it immediately after- 
wards, and caused Lady Oswald to 
inhale chloroform. Will you forgive 
me for again asking how it could have 
been ?” 

“ The very best of us are led into 
error sometimes,” replied Dr. Davenal. 

“ Why, that is one of the remarks 
Mark has just made to me in connec- 
tion with this case I I cannot recog- 
nize it as applying. . You spoke so 
firmly, so positively, that I should 
have believed there was no room for 
error to creep in. I feel that there is 
something to be explained. Dr. Dave- 
nal.” 

Dr. Davenal wheeled round in his 
walk and confronted Oswald. 

“ There are circumstances connected 
with this case, Mr. Oswald Cray, 
which I cannot explain to the world ; 
which I cannot explain even to you ; 
although I would rather tell them to 
you than to any one. Let it suffice to 
know that I could not save Lady Os- 
wald. It was not in my power.” 

“ But you could have saved — ^you 
could have helped giving her the 
chloroform !” returned Oswald, won- 
deringly. 

A slight pause. “ Will you oblige 
me by asking no further questions on 
the subject — by allowing it to drop, 
to me and to others ? Believe me I 
have no selfish motive in pressing this. 
No one living can regret more than I 
the fatal result to Lady Oswald 5 per- 


OSWALD CRAY. 


133 


haps nobody regrets it so keenly. 
Could I have saved her, no care, no 
skill, no labor, should have been 
spared. But I could not. I can only 
ask you to be satisfied with this 
meagre assurance, Mr. Oswald Cray ; 
and to believe me when I state that I 
have private reasons for declining to 
pursue the topic. 

^'And — pardon me — one more ques- 
tion — To what am I to attribute her 
death in my own mind ? Or, rather, 
this giving of the chloroform 

'‘You must look upon it as an error 
in judgment. It was such.” 

It was impossible for Oswald Cray, 
as a gentleman, to press further the 
matter. Dr. Davenal was an old man 
compared with him ; one of high repu- 
tation, skill, position. He could not 
understand it, but he could only bow 
to the request — nay, to the demand — 
and let the subject sink into silence. 
An awkward pause ensued. The 
doctor had not resumed his promenade, 
but stood under the gas-lamp, twirl- 
ing a quill pen which he had taken up 
in his fingers. 

“ How are the other sufferers from 
the accident getting on ?” inquired 
Oswald, when the silence was begin- 
^ ning to be heard. 

“Oh, quite well. Poor Bigg the 
fireman is nearly the only one of them 
left in the infirmary, and he will soon 
be out of it. The rest came off mostly 
with a few cuts and bruises. There’s 
a summons for me, I suppose.” 

The doctor alluded to a knock at 
the hall door. Neal came in. 

“ Mr. Wheatley, sir. He wishes to 
know if you can spare him ten min- 
utes.” 

“ Yes,” replied the doctor, and Os- 
wald rose. 

“ Will you walk up-stairs and see 
them ?” 

“ Not to-night, thank you.” 

“ I won’t press you,” said the doc- 
tor. “ Sara is cut up about this news 
from Edward — terribly disappointed ; 
and Aunt Bett is as cross as two 
sticks. She is fond of Edward, with 
all her ungraciousness to him, and she 
looks upon this hint of not coming 


down as a slight to herself. In man- 
ner she w^as always ungracious to the 
boys, from some idea, I believe, that 
it tended to keep them in order : but 
she loved them at heart. Good-night.” 

Dr. Davenal clasped his hand with 
a warm pressure, warmer than usual ; 
Oswald could not but feel it, and he 
went out perfectly mystified. 

Neal stepped on to open the front 
gate. Neal was always remarkably 
courteous and deferent to Mr. Oswald 
Cray. Oswald, who had only seen 
the best side of Neal, and never sus- 
pected there was a reverse one, looked 
upon him as a man to be respected, a 
faithful old retainer of the Oswald 
family. Lady Oswald had sung his 
praises times out of number in Os- 
wald’s ear, and she once told Oswald 
to try for Neal, should he ever require 
a servant about his person, for he 
would find Neal a man of fidelity, 
worth his 'weight in gold. Oswald 
believed her. He believed Neal to 
be faithful and true ; one whom doubt 
could not touch. 

“This death of your late mistress 
is a very sad thing, Neal.” 

“ Oh, sir ! I can’t express to you 
how I have felt it. I’m sure I can say 
that my lady was a true friend to me, 
the only one I had left.” 

“ No, no, Neal. Not the only one. 
You may count a friend in me — if only 
for the regard you were, I know, held 
in by Lady Oswald.” 

“ Thank you, sir, greatly,” — and 
honest Neal’s eyes swam in tears as 
he turned them to Mr. Oswald Cray 
under the light of his master’s pro- 
fessional gas-lamp. “ Sir,” he added, 
swaying forward the gate and drop- 
ping his voice as he approached nearer 
to Oswald, “how came that poison, 
that chloroform, to be given to her 
‘“I cannot tell; I cannot under- 
stand,” replied Oswald, speaking upon 
impulse, not upon reflection. 

“ Sir, if I might dare to say a 
word” — and Neal glanced round with 
caution on all sides as he spoke — 
“ I’d ask whether it was given in 
fairness ?” 

“ What do you mean, Neal ?” 


134 


OSWALD CRAY. 


“ There’s not a person in the world 
I’d venture to whisper such a thing 
to, sir, except yourself; but I doubt 
whether it ^cas given in fairness. I 
have a good reason for doubting it, 
sir. It makes me sick, sir, to think 
that there was some unfair play 
brought to work, and that it took her 
life.” 

'' Unfair play on the part of whom ?” 
asked Oswald. 

I am not sure that I dare say, sir, 
even to you. And it might be looked 
upon as — as — fancy on my part. One 
thing is certain, sir, that but for that 
chloroform being given to her, she’d 
be alive now.” 

“ Dr. Davenal and Mr. Cray gave 
the chloroform, JSTeal,” observed Mr. 
Oswald Cray, in a somewhat distant 
tone — for it was not to Neal he would 
admit any doubt, would scarcely con- 
descend to bear any, of the judgment 
of the surgeons. “ They know better 
about such things than we do.” 

“ Yes, sir,” answered Neal, as dryly 
as he dared. “ Mr. Cray, I am sure, 
did /iis‘ best, but be has not had the 
judgment and experience of my mas- 
ter. Any way, it seems it was the 
chloroform that killed her.” 

As it has killed others- before her 
— when administered in all deliberate 
judgment, by surgeons of as high re- 
pute and practice as Dr. Davenal. 
The issues of life and death are not 
even in a doctor’s hands, Neal. Good- 
night.” 

Good-night to you, sir.” 

Oswald Cray walked slowly towards 
his temporary home, the “ Apple 
Tree,” half bewildered with the conjec- 
tural views opened out to him, and not 
the least with that last hint of Neal’s. 
He could not get over that giving of 
the chloroform by Dr. Davenal in the 
very teeth of his expressed opinion 
against it. He had supposed, when 
he first heard of the cause of death, 
that this contradiction would be ex- 
plained away : but, instead of that, it 
was more unexplainable than before. 
There was Mark’s confused manner, 
his covert attempts to avoid inquiry ; 
there was Dr. Davenal’s positive de- 


nial to satisfy it ; there was the man 
Neal’s curious hint. Oswald Cray 
felt as one in a maze, trying to get at 
something which eluded his grasp. 

How the imagination runs riot, how 
utterly unamenable it is to the rules 
and regulations of sober control, ^ye 
most of us know. 

Oswald found his mind balancing 
the question, “ Did Richard Davenal 
give that chloroform in his calm delib- 
erate senses, believing that it might 
take her life ? If so, where was the 
motive ?” Men don’t do such things 
in these days without a motive, the 
greatest criminal must have that. Os- 
wald Cray could see none. There 
was no motive, or shadow of motive, 
for Dr. Davenal’s wishing for the 
death of Lady Oswald. Quite the 
contrary : it was his interest — if so 
worldly a plea may be brought into 
proximity with these solemn thoughts 
— ^to keep her in life. Of all his pa- 
tients, she perhaps was the most prof- 
itable, paying him a good sum yearly. 
Then — with the want of motive, those 
dark doubts born of his imagination 
fell to the ground, and he had the 
good sense to see that they did. 

They fell to the ground. And Os- 
wald Cray, as he awoke with a start 
and shook himself clear of them, 
pinched his arms to see whether he 
was awake. Surely in his sleep only 
could doubts, such as these, have 
arisen respecting Dr. Davenal. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

THE WILL. 

Sara Davenal in her sick restless- 
ness was early in the breakfast-room. 
The disappointment touching her 
brother was weighing down her heart. 
Since the arrival of the unsatisfactory 
note the previous evening, she had 
felt a conviction similar to Dr. Dave- 
nal’s, that Edward would not come. 
Neither bad spoken of it to the other : 
great griefs cannot be talked of ; and 


OSWALD CRAY. 


135 


to Sara this was a grief inexpressible. 
It seemed that she would give half 
her remaining years of life for only 
one five minutes’ interview with him. 

If he came at all he would come to- 
day, Friday ; and she got up hoping 
against hope ; saying to herself aloud, 
in contradiction of the fear lying upon 
her heart, and which she would not 
glance at, “ He will be sure to come ; 
he will never embark on that long 
voyage without first coming. He will 
remember Richard’s fate.” For the 
time being, the eager anxiety to see 
him almost seemed to deaden that 
other trouble which lay within her — 
the trouble that had taken possession 
of her on the Sunday night, never 
again to quit her mind. 

Is the post in ?” asked Dr. Dave- 
nal, as he entered the breakfast-room. 

^^Ho, it is not made,” sharply re- 
plied Miss Davenal, from her presiding 
place at the table. Neal has but 
this minute brought in the urn. I am 
making it as quickly as I can.” 

I asked whether the post was in, 
Bettina. Because if Edward is not 
coming, I should think there’d be a 
letter from him.” 

Sara looked up eagerly. Don’t 
you hope he will come, papa ? Don’t 
you think he will ?” 

'' Well,' Sara, after his letter of last 
night, my hopes upon the point are 
not very strong.” 

Oh, papa ! I want to see him ! I 
must see him before be sails.” 

^ Hush, child !” She had spoken 
in a distressed tone, and her small 
white hands were trembling. “ Agi- 
tating yourself will not bring him.” 

By-and-by the letters came in : 
two. Neal banded one to his master, 
the other to Sara. Both bore the 
same handwriting* — Captain Dave- 
nal’s. Sara, in her bitter disappoint- 
ment, let hers lie by her plate un- 
touched, but the doctor opened his. 

Miss Bettina looked up. ''Is he 
coming, Richard ?” 

"No. He says he can’t come. That 
it is an impossibility.” 

" What else does he say ?” 

Dr. Davenal folded his letter and 


put it in his pocket, to read it at his 
leisure. " Ask Sara what he says,” 
was his answer. "All the gossip is 
in hers.” 

"And this is what he calls affec- 
tion !” exclaimed Miss Bettina. " To 
leave his native land, his home, with- 
out a farewell ! That’s gratitude ! 
Richard Davenal, were I you, he 
should carry out my displeasure with 
him.” 

" I don’t know,” said the doctor, 
his voice sadly subdued. " Send out 
displeasure with one whom we may 
never see again ! No, Bettina. And 
it may be as he says — that he is unable 
to come.” 

He was looking straight before him 
as he spoke, in a far-off, dreamy gaze. 
His thoughts had flown to one who 
had gone out under a sort of displeas- 
ure, gone out but for a short time — 
and had never come home again. 

The doctor, in his black attire, 
stepped into his close carriage at the 
appointed time, to be conveyed to the 
residence,of Lady Oswald. He found 
all the -niourners assembled, (for he 
was late), with the exception of Mark 
Cray — Sir Philip Oswald and his 
eldest son ; Oswald Cray ; the Rev- 
erend Mr. Stephenson and his brother, 
Mr. Joseph Stephenson. All were 
there, now the doctor had come, except 
Mark. The funeral was to be at the 
church at eleven. 

The time went on. The hearse and 
mourning coaches stood before the 
door, the horses restless. It was 
close upon eleven. 

" For whom do we wait ?” inquired 
Sir Philip Oswald. 

"For Mr. Cray, Sir Philip,” an- 
swered the undertaker, who was glid- 
ing about, handing gloves and fixing 
hatbands. 

" Mr. Cray ?” repeated Sir Philip, 
as though he did not understand who 
Mr. Cray was. 

" Lady Oswald’s late medical atten- 
dant, Sir Philip, in conjunction with 
Dr. Davenal.” 

Oh — ah — yes,” said Sir Philip. 
He was very friendly with Dr, Dave- 
nal, exc^dingly so ; and condescend- 


136 


OSWALD CRAY. 


ed not to ignore Mr. Cray as his part- 
ner. It was the first time that Oswald 

• had ever been in a room with Sir Phil- 
ip. Sir Philip had bowed to him 
coldly enough upon his entrance, but 
the son, Henry Oswald, went up to 
him and held out his hand in a cordial 
manner. Oswald, haughtily self-pos- 
sessed, stood before Sir Philip with 
his impassive face, looking more of a 
gentleman than the baronet did. 

The clock struck eleven. I sup- 
pose Mr. Cray is coming remarked 
Sir Philip. 

He looked at Dr. Davenal. The 
doctor supposed he was coming, as a 
matter of course : he believed he was 
coming. He had not seen Mr. Cray 
that morning. 

It was suggested by the undertaker 
that they should proceed. Mr. Cray, 
he observed, would possibly join them 
at the church ; he might have been 
kept back unexpectedly. 

So the funeral started. All that 
remained of poor Lady Oswald was 
carried out of her house, never more 
to return to it. Not a week ago yet 
on that past Saturday morning, she 
had gone forth in health and strength, 
and now — there I What a lesson it 
was of the uncertainty of life I 

The funeral made its way to the 
church through lines of curious gazers. 
Mark Cray was not there, and the 

• service was performed without him. 
At its conclusion the gentlemen re- 
turned to the house. 

A lawyer from a neighboring town. 
Lady Oswald’s legal adviser, was there 
with the will, and they were invited 
to enter and hear the will read. 

It cannot concern me,” remarked 
Sir Philip. Nevertheless he went in. 

And I am sure it cannot concern 
me,” added Oswald. 

The clergyman looked up with a 
crimson flush on his cheeks. It was 
next to impossible to mistake his eager 
glance — betraying the hope within 
him, sure and steadfast, that the will 
did concern him. In point of fact he, 
and that gentleman by his side, his 
brother, had the chief right to any 
money she might have left. It may 


be said the sole right. How they 
needed it, their threadbare clothes and 
sunken cheeks betrayed. Gentlemen 
J30rn, they had to keep up an appear- 
ance before the world ; at least, they 
strove to keep it up. But they were 
weary with the struggle. The brother 
was of no particular profession. He 
had been intended for the Church, but 
could never get to college, so he con- 
trived to make a living — that is, he 
contrived not to starve — by writing 
articles for any paper or periodical 
that could be persuaded into taking 
them. Each was of good repute in the 
world, bearing up manfully and doing 
the best he could do with his lot — 
sanguinely hoping, humbly trusting, 
that time would better it. They each 
had a large family, and indulged the 
vain and wild hope of bringing up 
their sons as gentlemen, as they them- 
selves had been brought up. Not as 
gentlemen in the matter of abstaining 
from labor — that would have been fool- 
ish, but they hoped to bring them up 
educated men, capable of doing their 
duty in any walk of life they might be 
called to. How they had looked for- ^ 
ward to the prospect of some time 
possessing this money of Lady Os- 
wald’s, their hearts alone knew. If ever 
the excuse for cherishing such a wish 
could be pleaded, it surely might be by 
them. 

I suppose these people, the Steph- 
ensons, will chiefly inherit what she 
has left,” whispered the baronet’s son 
confidentially to Oswald Cray. Per- 
haps you know. You have seen a good 
deal of Lady Oswald, I believe.” 

“ I don’t at all know how her affairs 
are left,” was the reply of Oswald Cray. 

I should think they will inherit,” 
continued Mr. Oswald. ' Shouldn’t 
you ?” 

I should think — yes — I^should 
think they will. Being her only rela- 
tives, they have undoubtedly the great- 
est right.” 

Why did Oswald Cray hesitate in 
his answer — he, so generally decisive 
of speech. Because in the very mo- 
ment that the acquiescence was leav- 
ing his lips, there flashed over his 


OSWALD CRAY. 


mind the words spoken to him by Lady 
Oswald the previous Saturday. He 
had not understood those words at the 
time, did not understand them now, 
but if he could interpret them at all, 
they certainly did not point to her 
nephews, the brothers Stephenson. 
He remembered them well : at least 
their substance. '‘When my will 
comes to be read, you may feel sur- 
prised at its contents. You may deem 
that you had more legal claim upon 
me than he who will inherit : I do not 
think so. He to whom my money is. 
left has most claim in my judgment : 
I am happy to know that he will be 
rewarded, and he knows it.’^ 

Not a week since she had said this. 
How little did Oswald foresee that he 
should so soon be called upon to hear 
that will read 1 

But still the words did not seem to 
point to either of her nephews, with 
whom she had not lived on any terms 
of friendship, and Oswald began to 
feel a little curious as to the inheritor. 

They were waiting for the lawyer, 
who had not yet come into the room. 
He might be getting the will. His 
name was Wedderburn, a stout man, 
with a pimpled face. Sir Philip Os- 
wald had a pimpled face, too ; but he 
was not stout : he was as thin and 
tall as a lath. 

Dr. Davenal took out his watch. 
He found it later than he thought, and 
turned to Sir Philip. 

“ I cannot remain longer,” he said. 
“I have a consultation at half-past 
twelve, and must not miss it. I am 
not wanted here : there^s nothing re- 
quiring me to stay : so I’ll wish you 
good-morning.” 

“For that matter, I don’t see that 
any of us are wanted,” responded Sir 
Philip. “ I’m sure I am not. Good- 
morning, doctor.” 

Nodding his salutation to the room 
generally, the doctor went out. Soon 
afterwards Mr. Wedderburn made his 
appearance, the will in his hand. 
Clearing his voice, he threw his eyes 
round the room, as if to see that his 
audience were ready. The absence 
of one appeared then to strike him, 


137 

and he pushed his spectacles to the 
top of his brow and gazed again. 

“ Where’s Dr. Davenal ?” 

“He is gone,” replied Sir Philip 
Oswald. 

“ Gone !” repeated the lawyer, in 
consternation. “Why — he — Dr. Dav- 
enal should have stopped, of all 
people.” 

“He said he had a consultation. 
What does it signify ?” 

“Well, Sir Philip, he — at any rate, 
I suppose there’s no help for it now. 
It must be read without him.” 

All present looked at the lawyer 
with surprise, all thought him a 
strangely punctilious man to suppose 
Dr. Davenal’s presence, as Lady Os- 
wald’s medical man and attendant at 
her funeral, was in any degree essen- 
tial to the reading of Lady Oswald’s 
will. They soon learned the cause. 

First of all the will bequeathed a 
few legacies. Very small ones. Twenty 
pounds to each of her servants ; forty 
pounds and all her clothes to Parkins ; 
fifty pounds each to her nephews, John 
and Joseph Stephenson, with the furni- 
ture of her house to be divided between 
them “amicably a beautiful diamond 
ring and a little plate to Oswald Os- 
wald Cray ; the rest of the plate, by 
far the most valuable portion, to Sir 
Philip Oswald of Thorndyke ; and 
another diamond ring to Dr. Richard 
Davenal. So far, so good : but now 
came the disposal of the bulk of her 
money. It was bequeathed, the whole 
of it, to Dr. Davenal, “ my faithful 
friend and medical attendant for so 
many years.” 

The will was remarkably short, 
taking but a few minutes in the read- 
ing : and at its conclusion, Mr. Wed- 
derburn laid it open on the table that 
anybody might look at it whp chose. 

It would be difficult to say which 
of the countenances around him ex- 
hibited the greatest surprise. The 
lawyer’s voice died away in a deep 
silence. It was broken by the clergy- 
man, the Reverend John Stephenson. 

“ It is not just ! It is not just !” 

The wailing tone, not of passion or 
anger but ^f meek despair, struck 


138 


OSWALD CRAY. 


upon tliem all, and told how bitter 
was the disappointment. Every heart 
in the room echoed the cry, the law- 
yer’s probably excepted. This one 
took out his snutF-box and inhaled a 
pinch with equanimity. 

I am ready to answer questions, 
should any gentleman wish to put 
them. It was I^ady Oswald’s desire 
that I should. When this will was 
made she said to me, ‘ Some of them 
will be for making a fuss, WedSer- 
burn : you can explain my motives if 
they care to hear them.’ Those mo- 
tives lay in this : her ladyship knew 
her health and comfort to have been 
so materially benefited of late years 
by the skill and kindness of Dr. Dave- 
nal, that she considered it her duty in 
gratitude to reward him.” 

“ Nevertheless it is not just,” mur- 
mured the poor clergyman again. 

Dr. Davenal does not want the 
money as we want it.” 

Oswald Cray awoke as from a 
dream. He took a step forward and 
addressed the lawyer. “ Did Dr. 
Davenal know that the money was 
left to him ?” 

I am unable to say, sir. Lady 
Oswald may have told him, or she 
may not. He did not know it from me. ” 

Oswald Cray said no more. He 
leaned against the window, half hid- 
den by the curtain, and plunged in 
thought. 

‘‘Well, I must say I am surprised,” 
remarked Sir Philip. “ Not but that 
Lady Oswald had a perfect right to 
do as she pleased with her money, 
and she might have signalled out a 
less worthy man as inheritor. How 
much is the amount, Mr. Wedder- 
burn ? Do you know ?” 

“ Somewhere between six and seven 
thousand pounds, I believe, ^ir Philip. 
It would have been considerably'^more, 
but that her ladyship, a few years 
ago, was persuaded by an evil coun- 
sellor to sell out a large sum from the 
funds and invest elsewhere, for the 
sake of better in^rest.” 

“ And she lost it ?” 

“ Every shilling,” replied the law- 


yer, with satisfaction ; for it was done 
without his concurrence. “ She would 
have had double the money to leave 
behind her but for that.” 

“ Ah !” Sir Philip spoke the mono- 
syllable shortly, and dropped the point. 
Not so very long ago, he had been in- 
duced to invest money in some grand 
and very plausible scheme — one of 
those to be heard of daily, promising 
a fortune in twelve months at the 
least — and he had burnt his fingers. 
The topic, consequently, w^as not 
agreeable to his ears. 

“Ask him how’ long this will has 
been made, John,” whispered the lit- 
erary man to his brother. Of a re- 
tiring, timid nature himself, he rarely 
spoke but when he was obliged, and 
he shrank from putting this question. 
The clergyman obeyed, and the law- 
yer pointed to the date of the will. 

“ Only in April last. Lady Osw^ald 
was fond of making wills. Some peo- 
ple are so. I have made her, I should 
think, half-a-dozen, if I have made 
one.” 

“ And the bulk of the money was 
alw'ays left to Dr. Davenal ?” 

“Oh, dear, no. It never was 1^ 
to him until this last was made.” 

“ Was I — w^ere w^e — w\as it ever 
left to us ?” asked the poor clergyman, 
tremblingly. 

“ Yes, it w^as,”* replied Mr. Wedder- 
burn. “ I don’t see why I should not 
avow it. It can’t make any differ- 
ence, one way or the other. In the 
first will she ever made after Sir 
John’s death it was left to you. And 
in the last will preceding this, it was 
again left to you. Once it was left” 
— the lawyer looked towards the win- 
dow — “to Mr. Osw\ald Cray.” 

Oswald gave his shoulders a haughty 
shrug. “ I should never have accepted 
the legacy,” he said in a distinct, de- 
liberate tone. “ I had no claim wdiat- 
ever to Lady Osw^ aid’s money, and 
should not have taken it.” 

Henry Osw^ald laughed — a pleasant, 
cordial laugh — as he turned to Os- 
wald. “ You don’t know, Mr. Os- 
wald Cray. We are all so ready to 


OSWALD CRAY. 


139 


be chivalrous in theory : but when it 
comes to practice — th^ best of us are 
apt to fall off. 

True,’^ quietly remarked Oswald : 
but he did not pursue the theme. 

There was nothing more to be said 
or done then. Of what profit to re- 
main talking of the wills that had 
been, while the present one was be- 
fore them and must be put in force ? 
Sir Philip made the first move ; he 
went out, taking a formal leave ; 
Henry Oswald, with a more cordial 
one. Oswald Cray was the next to 
leave. He shook hands with the 
brothers, and spoke a few kind words 
of sympathy to them. 

It is the disappointment of a life,’^ 
replied the clergyman in a low tone. 

Our struggle has been continued 
long ; and we had — there’s no deny- 
ing it — looked forward to this. It is 
a hard trial when relatives find them- 
selves passed over for strangers.” 

It is, it is,” said Oswald Cray. 
^‘I could wish Lady Oswald had been 
more mindful of legitimate claims.” 

As he was going out, Parkins 

aylaid him in her new mourning. 

There will be a dinner ready at five 
o’clock, sir. Would you be pleased 
to stay for it ?” 

Not to-day,” replied Oswald. 

4 

CHAPTER XX. 

NEAL’S VISIT. 

Causing the sweeping crape to be 
taken from his hat, for he preferred to 
depart on foot, Oswald Cray pro- 
ceeded through the town to the house 
of his brother. Just as he reached 
the door, Mark rode up on horseback, 
and leaped off with a hasty spring, 
throwing his bridle to the man who 
waited. 

Of course I am too late !” he ex- 
claimed. 

“ Of course you are, by pretty near 
two hours. How did it happen, 
Mark ?” 


^‘Well — I can hardly tell how it 
happened,” was the answer of Mark. 
“ I had a patient to see in the coun- 
try — more than one, in fact — and I 
thought I could do it all first and be 
back in time. But I suppose I must 
have stayed later than I purposed, for 
hyefore I was ready to return I found 
it was half-past eleven, and the fu- 
neral no doubt over. And then I did 
not hurry myself.” 

They were walking across the hall 
to the dining-room as he said this. 
Caroline was seated at the table, her 
work-box before her, doing some em- 
broidery. She flung it down, rose, 
and confronted her husband. 

Mark, why did you do this ? You 
went into the country to avoid the 
funeral !” 

I — I did what ?” exclaimed Mark. 
“ Nonsense, Carrie ! Why should I 
wish to avoid the funeral ? I hav^ 
attended plenty of funerals in my 
time. ” 

Oswald turned quickly and looked 
at Mark. It was not the accusation 
of Mrs. Cray that had aroused his 
attention, that went for nothing ; but 
something peculiar in Mark’s tone as 
he answered it. To Oswald’s ears it 
spoke of evasion. He could not see 
his face. It was bent, and he was 
slapping his dusty boots with his rid- 
ing whip. 

‘‘ But why did you go into the 
country ?” pursued Caroline. “ It 
was half-past ten when you were 
here, and I warqgd ypu^'flien it was 
getting time to dress." When I saw 
your, horse, brought to the door and 
you gallqp off^ I could not believe my 
eyes.” 

“ Well, I mistook the time, that's 
the fact. I am very sorry for it, but 
it can’t be helped now. Of course 1 
should like to have attended and paid 
her my last respects, poor lady. Not 
but that I dare say there were enough 
without me. I was not missed.” 

“But you were missed,” said Os- 
wald, “and waited for too. It threw 
us pretty nearly half-an-hour behind- 
hand. I should not like to keep a 
funeral waiting, myself, Mark.” 



140 


OSWALD CRAY. 


‘‘ Who was there ?” asked Mark. 

“ The two relatives of Lady Os- 
wald, Sir Philip and his son, Dr. 
Davenal and myself.^’ 

Davenal was there, then. But 
of course he would be. Then he 
served to do duty for me and himself. 
And so Sir Philip came 

I should be surprised had he not 
come.^^ 

“ Should you I He is a cranky sort 
of gentleman : an Oswald all over. 
You are another of them, Oswald. I 
wonder if you’ll get cranky in your 
old age.” 

Don’t listen to him, Oswald,” in- 
terposed Mrs. Cray. He seems 
‘cranky’ himself this morning.” 

Mark laughed good-humoredly, and 
tossed to Caroline a late China rose 
which he had brought home in his 
button-hole. “ Did you hear the will 
read, Oswald ?” he asked. 

^ “Yes.” 

“ Short and sweet !” cried Mark, 
alluding to the monosyllable, which it 
must be confessed was given in a 
curt, displeased tone, as if its speaker 
were himself displeased. “ I think it 
is you who are cranky, Oswald.” 

Oswald smiled. “ A thought was 
causing me vexation, Mark.” 

“ Vexation at me ?” 

“ Oh, no.” 

“Well, and who comes in for the 
money ? The Stephensons ?” 

“ No. The Stephensons come in 
for a veiy poor portion. It is left to 
Dr. Davenal.” 

“ To Dr. Davenal I” echoed Mark 
in his astonishment. “ No 1” 

“The bulk of- the money is be- 
queathed to him. All of it, in fact, 
with the exception of a few trifling 
legacies. The Stephensons have fifty 
pounds each and the furniture.” 

Caroline had dropped her embroid- 
ery again, and was gazing at Oswald, 
apparently unable to take in the news. 
“ Are you telling us this for a joke ?” 
she asked. 

“ The money is left to Dr. Davenal, 
Mrs. Cray,” repeated Oswald, and cer- 
tainly there was no sound of joking in 
his tone. “ It surprised us all.” 


“ What a lucky man 1” exclaimed 
Mark. “ I wonder if he had any pre- 
vision of this yesterday ? We were 
speaking of money, he and I. It was 
about that field behind the doctor’s 
stables, the one he has so long wanted 
to buy. The owner’s dead, and it is 
for sale at last. I observed to the 
doctor that I supposed he’d secure it 
at once, but he said he should not buy 
it at all ; he had had a heavy loss, and 
could not afford it — ” 

“ It is not true, Mark !” interrupted 
his wife. 

“ It is true, Caroline. But don’t^ 
you go and repeat it again. He said, 
moreover, he had great need himself 
of a thousand or too, and did not 
know where to turn for it. Mind you, 

I believe he was betrayed, as it were, 
out of the avowal, I had been saying 
so much about the field : for he brought 
himself suddenly up as though recol- 
lection had come to him, and said, 

‘ Don’t talk of this, Mark !’” 

And Mark’s long tongue had talked 
of it ! Oswald Cray listened to its 
every word. 

“ If he could but have foreseen them' ' 
that this money had dropped to him ! 
And yet — I should think he must have 
known it from Lady Oswald ; or par- 
tially known it. How much is it, Os- 
wald^” 

“ Six or seven thousand pounds. It 
would have been a great deal more 
but for certain losses. Wedderburn 
said she was persuaded to embark 
money in some speculation ; and it 
failed.” 

“ How stupid of her !” exclaimed 
free Mark. “ I wonder now whether 
the doctor did know of this 1 If he 
did he’d keep his own counsel. Did 
he appear surprised, Oswald ?” 

“ He was not there. He left before 
the will was read, saying he had to 
attend a consultation.” 

“ Well, sa he had,” said Mark ; “ I 
happen to know that much. It was 
for half-past twelve.” 

So far, then. Dr. Davenal had spoken 
truth. A doubt had been crossing Os- 
wald’s mind, amidst many other curi- 
ious doubts, whether Dr. Davenal had 


OSWALD CRAY. 


141 


made the excuse to get away, and so 
avoid hearing the will read and him- 
self named chief legatee. 

He remained some time with Mark 
and his wife. They asked hto to 
stay for dinner, but he declined. He 
had ordered a chop to be ready at the 

Apple Tree,^^ and was going back to 
London early in the evening — by that 
seven o’clock train you have before 
heard of. 

Had you any particular motive 
for absenting yourself from Lady Os- 
wald’s funeral ?” he asked of Mark, 
as the latter accompanied him to the 
street-door on his departure. 

Not I,” answered Mark, with the 
most apparent readiness. It was 
very bungling of me to mistake the 
time. Not that I like attending fu- 
nerals as a matter of taste : I don’t 
know who does. Good-afternoon, Os- 
wald. You must give us a longer 
visit when you are down next.” 

He stood at the abbey-door, watch- 
ing his brother wind around the 
branching rails, for Oswald was taking 
the station on his way to the inn. 
Yery cleverly, in Mark’s own opinion, 
had he parried the questions of his 
purposed absence. His absence was 
purposed. With that chloroform on 
his conscience, he did not care to at- 
tend the funeral of Lady Oswald. 

And the afternoon went on. 

It was growing dusk, was turned 
half-past six, and Oswald Cray was 
beginning to think it time to make 
ready for his departure. He had not 
stirred from the chair where he ate 
his dinner, though the meal was over 
long ago ; had not called for lights ; 
had, in fact, waved John Hamos away 
when he appeared with them. His 
whole range of thought was absorbed 
by one topic — his doubts of Dr. Dave- 
nal. 

Yes, it is of no use to deny it ; it 
had come to that with Oswald Cray. 
Doubts he scarcely knew of what or 
to what extent ; he scarcely knew 
where these doubts or his own 
thoughts were carrying him. On the 
previous night he had for a few mo- 
ments given the reins to imagination ; 


had allowed himself to suppose for 
argument’s sake only, that Dr. Dave- 
nal had given that chloroform know- 
ing or fancying it might prove fatal, 
and he had gone so far as to ask what 
then could bei his motive. There was 
no motive ; Oswald glanced on each 
side of him to every point and could 
discover no motive whatever^ or ap- 
pearance of motive. Therefore he 
had thrust the doubts from him, as 
wanting foundation. 

But had the revelation of this day 
supplied the link that was wanting ? 
Had they not supplied it ? The death 
of Lady Oswald brought a fortune to 
Dr. Davenal. 

Almost hating himself for pursuing 
these thoughts, or rather for the obli- 
gation to pursue them, for they would 
haunt him and he could not help him- 
self, Oswald Cray sat on in the fading^ 
light. He said to himself, how ab- 
surd, nay,* how wicked it was of him, 
and yet he could not shake them off. 
The more he strove to do so, the more 
he brought reason to his aid, telling 
himself that Dr. Davenal was a good 
and honorable and upright man, the 
less would reason hold the mastery. 
Imagination was all too present in its 
most vivid coloring, and it was chain- 
ing him to its will. 

What are the simple facts ? asked 
reason. Dr. Davenal had caused Lady 
Oswald to inhale chloroform, having 
only some hours previously avowed 
to Oswald his belief that she was a 
most unfit subject for it, was one of 
those few to whom the drug proves fa- 
tal. It did prove fatal. There had next 
been some equivocation on the part 
of Mark, when questioned about it, 
and there had been the positive re- 
fusal of Dr. Davenal to afford any ex- 
planation. Next there had been, the 
discovery of the day — that Dr. Dave- 
nal was the inheritor. Well, it might 
all be explained away, reason eaid ; 
it was certainly not enough to at- 
tribute to Davenal the worst social 
crime contained in the Decalogue. 
But the more Oswald Cray dwelt on 
this view, or tried to dwell upon it, 
the more persistently rose up imagina- 


142 


OSWALD CRAY. 


tion, torturing and twisting facts, and 
bending them as it pleased. 

There had been that hint of YeaPs, 
too ! Oswald Cray honestly believed 
that Xeal was one of those servants 
incapable of speaking ill for ilPs sake ; 
he could not help wondering what he 
meant. Yeal was not an ignorant 
man likely to be deceived, to take up 
fancies : he was of superior intelli- 
gence, quite an educated man for his 
class of life. If 

Oswald’s thoughts were interrupted 
by the entrance of his landlord. “ I 
don’t want lights, John ; I told you I 
did not. I shall be going directly.” 

It is not lights, sir. Mr. Keal, 
Dr. Davenal’s servant, is asking to 
see you.” 

‘^Neal! Let him come in.” 

Neal came forward into the dusky 
room. He was the bearer of a note 
^^from his master. Oswald had a light 
brought in, then, and opened the 
hote. It was written in pencil. 

My dear Mr. Oswald Cray : 

“ I very much wish to see you if 
you can spare me an hour. I thought 
perhaps you would have dropped in 
this lonely day, and taken a knife and 
fork with us. Will you come down 
this evening ? 

Ever sincerely yours, 

“Richard Da venal.” 

“ Neal, will you tell Dr. Davenal — 
he is expecting me, I find ?” 

“ I think so, sir. He said to me 
before dinner that he thought you 
might be coming in. When he found 
you did not, and they were sitting 
down to table, he wrote this in pencil, 
and bade me call one of the maids to 
wait, while I brought it up to you.” 

“ Tell the doctor that I am quite 
unable to come down. I have to re- 
turn to London by the seven o’clock 
train.” 

“ Very well, sir.” 

Neal was leaving the room, but Mr. 
Oswald Cray stopped him. He had 
taken a sudden resolution, and he 
spoke on the spur of the moment. 


without reflection. The perplexity 
of his mind may be his excuse. 

“ Neal, have you any objection to 
tell me what you meant last night by 
hinting that Lady Oswald had not 
come fairly by her death ?” 

Neal paused. He was a man of cau- 
tion ; he liked to calculate his words 
and his ways before entering on them. 
Neal would certainly speak if he dared. 
He was in a very bitter mood, for the 
day’s doings had not pleased him. 
The news had reached him that her 
ladyship’s money had been all left to 
Dr. Davenal ; that he, Neal, was not 
so much as named in the will. And 
Neal had looked forward as confi- 
dently as had the Reverend Mr. Ste- 
phenson to the hope of some little 
remembrance being left to him. In 
his terrible anger it seemed to him 
that the one enemy to prevent it had 
been the great inheritor. Dr. Davenal. 

“ Sir, if I speak, would you give 
me your promise first, to hold what I 
say sacred to yourself ; to let it go no 
further ? - I know, sir, it is not the 
place of a servant to ask this con- 
fidence of a gentleman, but I should 
be afraid to speak without it.” 

“ I will give it you,” said Mr. Os- 
wald Cray. “You may rely upon 
me.” 

And Neal knew that if there was 
one man more than another on the 
face of the earth who would never 
forfeit his word, upon wdiom implicit 
trust might be placed, it was Oswald 
Cray. Neal set himself to his task 
First of all opening the door to mal 
sure they were entirely alone, he 
dropped his voice to a safe whisper, 
and described what he had seen and 
heard on the Sunday night. It was 
certainly a startling narration, and as 
Oswald Cray listened to it in that 
darkened room — for the one candle, 
now placed on a side-table behind, 
only served to throw out its shadows 
— listened to the hushed tones, the 
unexplainable words, a curious feel- 
ing of dread began to creep over him. 
Neal, you may be very sure, did not 
disclose any thing that could bear 


OSWALD CRAY. 


143 


against himself ; he contrived to come 
out well ill it. He was standing out- 
side for a moment before going to 
bed, hoping the air would remove the 
sad headache which had suddenly 
seized him upon hearing of the death 
of his late lady, when he saw the man 
come in in the extraordinary manner 
he had just described. Believing him 
to be nothing less than a house- 
breaker (and Watton, who had seen 
the man from her room up-stairs, had 
come to the same conclusion), or an 
evil character of some sort getting in 
plausibly on false pretences to work 
harm to Dr. Davenal, he had gone to 
the window to look in, out of his 
anxiety for his master’s safety and 
there had heard what he had stated, 
for the window was thrown open. 
He could not see the visitor, who was 
seated in the shade : he only heard 
suflGicient to tell him that the business 
be had come on was Lady Oswald’s 
death ; and he heard Dr. Davenal 
acknowledge that it was murder, and 
that it must be hushed up at any 
price, even if it cost him his fortune. 
He, Neal, described the utterly pros- 
trate condition of his master that 
night : both before and after the in- 
terview with the visitor, he was like 
one who has some dreadful secret 
upon the mind, some heavy guilt; 
Neal had thought so before ever the 
man, whoever he might have been, 
entered the house. 

Will it be forgiven to Oswald Cray 
if in that brief, confused moment he 
believed the worst — believed all that 
Neal said to him ? His mind was in 
a chaos of perplexity, almost, it may 
be said, of terror. Nothing was clear. 
He could not analyze, he could not 
reason : Neal’s words, and the doings 
of the night which the man was de- 
scribing, seemed to dance before his 
mind in confused forms, ever chang- 
ing as do the bits of colored glass in 
a kaleidoscope. Neal continued to 
speak, but he did not hear him dis- 
tinctly now ; the words reached his 
senses certainly, but more as if he 
were in a mazy dream. He heard 
the man reiterate that wherever it was 


his master had gone to, that night, 
remaining away until the Wednesday, 
it was connected with the death of 
Lady Oswald ; he heard him say that, 
whatever the mystery and the guilt. 
Miss Sara Davenal had been made the 
confidante of it by her father, he, 
Neal, supposed from some imperative 
motive which he did not pretend to 
understand. Oswald heard like one 
in a dream, the words partially glanc- 
ing off his mind even as they were 
spoken, only to be recalled afterwards 
with redoubled force. 

In the midst of it he suddenly 
looked at his watch, suspecting — as 
he found — that he had barely time to 
catch the train. 

And he went out in a sort of blind 
confusion, his brain echoing the words 
of Dr. Davenal, only too accurately 
remembered and repeated by Neal. 

Murder ? Yes, the world would look 
upon it as such. I felt certain that 
Lady Oswald was one to whom chloro- 
form, if administered, would prove 
fatal.” 


CHAPTER XXL 

DR. DA venal’s “ FOLLY.” 

It was startling news to go forth to 
Hallingham — one of the nine days’ 
wonders read of in social history. 
Lady Oswald had bequeathed her for- 
tune to her physician. Dr. Davenal ! 
Such things had been known before 
in the world’s experience, but Hal- 
lingham made as much of the fact as 
if this were the first time it had hap- 
pened. 

Upon none did the news fall with 
more complete astonishment than 
upon the doctor himself. Lady Os- 
wald had more than once in the past 
few months mysteriously hinted to 
him that he would be rewarded some 
time for his care and attention to her. 
Upon Dr. Davenal the hints had never 
made any impression. Of a nature 
the very reverse of covetous, simple- 
minded, single-hearted, it never so 


144 


OSWALD CRAY. 


much as crossed his imagination that 
she would leave her money to him. 
He would have been the first to re- 
pudiate it ; to point out to her the in- 
justice of the act. 

It is surely not necessary to premise 
that you, my intelligent and enlight- 
ened readers, cannot have fallen into 
the mistake made by Neal, or drawn 
that respected domestic’s very absurd 
— though perhaps to a fanciful and pre- 
judiced mind not unnatural — deduc- 
tion, that the night-visit to Dr. Dave- 
nal had reference to Lady Oswald’s 
death. Being in the secret as to who 
really did administer the fatal dose of 
chloroform to Lady Oswald, you will 
not connect that visit with Dr. Dave- 
nal’s trouble. The visit may certainly 
be said to have had some mystery at- 
taching to it, for it was made covertly 
and by one who did not care to be 
seen ; but the chief mystery lay in 
the mind of Neal alone. A heavy 
secret, involving disgrace, much mis- 
ery, perhaps ruin, had indeed fallen 
that night on Dr. Davenal, but it was 
entirely unconnected with the death 
of Lady Oswald. The words which 
Neal heard — and he heard them cor- 
rectly — would have borne to his 
mind a very different interpretation 
had he been enabled to hear the whole 
— what preceded them and what fol- 
lowed them. But he did not. 

Yes, this unhappy secret, this great 
misfortune, however inexpedient it 
may be at present to describe w’hat it 
really was, had nothing to do with 
Lady Oswald. Far from Dr. Dave- 
nal having caused her to inhale an 
(‘Xtra dose of chloroform as an experi- 
ment, in the hope that it might prove 
fatal, and so enable him to drop at 
once into that very desirable legacy 
named in her will, he had not the 
faintest suspicion that he should in- 
herit a shilling. When the news was 
conveyed to him he could not believe 
it to be true, did not believe it for some 
little time. 

It was Mr. Wedderburn who car- 
ried it to him. When the lawyer’s 
business was over at Lady Oswald’s 
he proceeded to Dr. Davenal’s and 


found the doctor at home : he having 
just come in from attending the con- 
sultation. Mr. Wedderburn told him 
the news. 

Left to me I” exclaimed the doc- 
tor. Her money left to me I Non- 
sense I” 

“ It is indeed,” affirmed Mr. Wed- 
derburn. ^‘After her legacies are paid, 
you take every thing — ^you are residu- 
ary legatee.” 

You are joking,” said the doctor. 

What have I to do with the money ? 

I have no right to it.” 

With some difficulty Dr. Davenal 
was convinced that he and he alone 
was named as the inheritor. It did 
not give him pleasure. Quite the 
contrary; he saw in it only a good ^ 
deal of trouble and law business, which 
he much disliked at all times to en- 
gage in. 

Richard Davenal was one of those 
thoroughly conscientious men — and 
there are a few such in the world — 
who could not be content to enjoy 
money to which another has a better 
right. It was a creed of his — and I 
hope not altogether an obsolete one — 
that money so enjoyed could not bring 
pleasure in the spending, or good in 
the end. Lady Oswald had legitimate 
relations, who had looked for the 
money, who needed the money, needed 
it with a far deeper need than ' Dr. 
Davenal, and who possessed a claim 
to it, so far as relationship could give 
it them. And as the conviction slowly 
dawned on him that the news, that he 
had been made the inheritor, was true, 
so there arose Wother conviction, or 
rather a resolution, with it — ^that he 
would never accept the money, that it 
should go over to its legitimate owners, 
no matter what trouble it involved. 

A resolution from which he never 
swerved. 

Never. Not even in that moment 
when a tempter’s voice arose within 
him, whispering how well this legacy 
would serve to replace that great sum, 
the savings of years, which he had 
been obliged to part with only that 
very week. Partly to satisfy a debt, 
of which until then he had known 


OSWALD CRAY. 


145 


nothmg, had he parted with it ; partly 
as hush-money, to keep down the 
terrible secret whispered to him on 
the Sunday night. The thought cer- 
tainly did arise — that it almost seemed 
as if this money had been sent to him 
to replace it ; but never for a moment 
did he allow it to obtain weight. It 
would have been simply impossible 
for Dr. Da venal to act against his 
conscience. 

“ I shall refuse the legacy,” he re- 
marked to Mr. Wedderburn. “ I have 
no right to it.” 

What did you say ?” asked the 
lawyer, believing he did not properly 
catch the words. 

I shall not accept this money. It 
is none of mine. It ought to be none 
of mine. It must go to Lady Oswald’s 
relatives.” 

But it is yours. Dr. Davenal. It 
is bequeathed to you in the will.” 

I don’t care for the will. I should 
not care for ten wills if I had no right 
to the money they bequeathed me. I 
have no right to this, and I will not 
touch a farthing of it.” 

Mr. Wedderburn’s surprise ex- 
pended itself in one long stare. In 
all his lawyerly experience he had 
never heard of a resolution so savor- 
ing of chivalry. The legatees he had 
had the pleasure of doing business 
with, were only too eager to grasp 
their good fortune, and if any little 
inconvenient pricks of conscience were 
80 ill-mannered as to arise, they were 
speedily dismissed by the very legal 
consideration — If I do take it I but 
obey the will. 

There never was such a thing 
heard of, as the refusing of a fortune 
legally bequeathed,” cried the lawyer. 

I dare say there has been, many 
a time. If not, this will be a pre- 
cedent.” 

You’ll be so laughed at,” persisted 
Mr. Wedderburn. ''You’ll be set 
down — I’m afraid people will be for 
setting you down as a lunatic.” 

Let them,” said the doctor. '' They 
shan’t confine me as one without my 
own certificate. Mr. Wedderburn,” 
he continued, in a graver tone, " I am 

9 


serious in this refusal. I feel that I 
have no right whatever to this money 
of Lady Oswald’s. She paid me liber- 
ally for my services — ” 

" If you only knew how many thou- 
sands inherit money daily w’ho have 
no right to it,” interrupted Mr. Wed- 
derburn. 

" Doubtless they do. I was going 
to observe that it is not so much my 
having no right to it, that would cause 
me to decline, as the fact that others 
exist who have a better right. I — ” 

"But the will gives you a right,” 
interposed the lawyer, unable to get 
over his surprise. 

" A legal right I am aware it does. 
But not a just one. No, I will not 
accept this legacy. I should wish the 
money to be appropriated just as 
though there had been no Dr. Davenal 
in existence. You say this will was 
made about six months ago. It must 
have superseded another will, I pre- 
sume ?” 

" It may be said that it superseded 
several,” was the reply. " Lady Os- 
wald was constantly making wills. 
She had made some half-dozen before 
this last one.” 

"And each one disposing of her 
property differently?” quickly asked 
the doctor. 

"Yes; or nearly so. Twice she 
bequeathed it to her nephews, the 
Stephensons. Once it was left to Mr. 
Oswald Cray ; once to charities ; once 
to Sir Philip Oswald. She has been 
exceedingly capricious. ” 

" All the more reason why I should 
not take it now,” warmly cried Dr. 
Davenal. " She must have left it to 
me in a moment of caprice ; and, had 
she lived a few months longer, this 
will would have been revoked as the 
rest had been. Mr. Wedderburn, were 
I capable of acting upon it and taking 
the money, I should lose all self-respect 
forever. I could not, as a responsible 
being, responsible to One who sees 
and judges all I do, be guilty of so 
crying an injustice.” 

Mr. Wedderburn suppressed a shrug 
of the shoulders. He could only look 
at these affairs with a lawyer’s eye 


(it 


OSWALD CRAY. 




.'nd a lawyer’s reasoning. Dr. Dave- 
:ial resumed. 

“ What was the tenor of the will 
which this last one superseded ? Do 
you recollect ?” 

** Perfectly. We hold the draft of 
it still. It was as nearly as possible 
a counterpart of the present one, ex- 
cepting as relates to your share in 
this, and the share of the brothers 
Stephenson. In that last will they 
took your place. The furniture be- 
queathed to them, as in this, and also 
the bulk of the property.” 

“ My name not being mentioned 
in it ?” 

‘‘ Yes, it was. The diamond ring 
bequeathed to you now was be- 
queathed then. Nothing more.” 

“ Then that’s all right. Now, Mr. 
Wedderburn, listen to me. That dia- 
mond ring I will accept with pleasure 
as a reminiscence of my poor friend 
and patient ; but I will accept noth- 
ing else. Will you be so kind as to 
destroy this last will, and let the other 
be acted upon ? I am scaring you, I 
see. If that cannot legally be done, I 
must let the money come to me, but 
only in transit for the rightful owners, 
the Reverend Mr. Stephenson and his 
brother. You will manage this for 
me. Being at home in law details, 
you know of course what may and 
what may not be done. All I beg of 
you is to effect this, carrying it out in 
the simplest manner, and in the short- 
est possible time.” 

Mr. Wedderburn felt disgusted. 
He had no more cause to wish the 
money to go to Dr. Da venal than to 
the clergyman and his brother, but it 
was altogether so unusual a mode of 
proceeding, would be so very unpro- 
fessional a transaction, that he re- 
garded it as an innovation hardly to 
be tolerated, a sort of scandal on all 
the recognized notions of the legal 
world, in which Mr. Wedderburn him- 
self was little better than a machine. 

“ I cannot undertake it without your 
giving me instructions in writing. Dr. 
Davenal. I’d not stir a peg in it 
without.” 

“You shall have them in full.” 


“ Well, sir, you know best, but the 
time may come when your children 
will not thank you for this. It is folly. 
Dr. Davenal, and nothing less.” 

“ I hope my children will never 
question any act of mine. I am doing 
this for the best. ” 

Nevertheless, as Dr. Davenal spoke, 
there was some pain in his tone. The 
lawyer detected it, and thought he 
was coming round. He would not 
speak immediately, but let the feeling 
work its way. 

“It is a large sum to relinquish,” 
the lawyer presently said ; “ to throw 
out of one’s hand as if it were so much 
worthless sand.” 

“ What is the sum ? — what has she 
left ?” asked Dr. Davenal, remember- 
ing that he was as yet ignorant of this 
point. ^ 

“ I expect, when all the legacies 
and other expenses are paid, there will 
be a little over six thousand pounds. 
There might have been double that. 
Lady Oswald lost a large sum a few 
years ago, quite as much as six 
thousand. She put it into some pros- 
perous-looking bubble, and it burst. 
Women should never dabble in busi- 
ness. They are safe to get their 
fingers burnt.” 

“Men burn theirs too at times,” 
was the answer of Dr. Davenal, spoken 
significantly. “ Six thousand pounds I 
I should have thought her worth much 
more. Well, Mr. Wedderburn, you 
will carry out my instructions. ” 

“ Of course, if you order me. Will 
you be so kind as to write these in- 
structions t(J*bie at your convenience, 
posting them from this town to my 
house. I am going back home at 
once.” 

“ Will you see Mr. Stephenson and 
his brother again to-day ? I wish you 
would see them. Were they not sur- 
prised when the will was read ? — 
struck with its injustice ?” 

“ They were disappointed ; there’s 
no doubt of it.” 

“Ay. They must be relieved from 
their disappointment. You had better 
see them, Mr. Wedderburn.” 

Mr. Wedderburn thought otfcerwifle. 


OSWALD CRAY. 


would rather not,” he answered. 

For one thing, Dr. Davenal, I am 
really anxious to go home by the first 
train ; there’s a necessity for my reach- 
ing it before post-time. And I have 
another reason. I wish you would 
allow me to give you just one word 
of advice.” 

^*You can give it me,” said Dr. 
Davenal. I don^t promise to take it ” 
It might be better for you if you 
would,” was the lawyer’s reply. My 
advice is, say nothing to the Stephen- 
sons, or to any one else, to-day. This 
as a very strange resolution that you 
have come to, and I beg you to sleep 
over it. Should you be more con- 
firmed in it to-morrow, it will be time 
enough to proclaim it then. Great as 
the blow is to the Stephensons, one 
night of it won’t kill them. And it is 
not so bad — they know of the fifty 
pounds each, and the furniture.” 

The lav/yer departed. Dr. Davenal 
stood a few minutes in thought. It 
was close upon the hour for receiving 
his indoor patients, and he could not 
go out then. Quitting his study, where 
the interview had taken place, he went 
to look for his daughter, and found her 
in the garden parlor with her aunt. 
It was not often that Miss Bettina 
went into that room — she had been 
wont to tell Sara and Caroline that its 
litter set her teeth on edge. 

They began to talk to him of the 
funeral. 

Were the people from Thorndyke 
there ?” Bettina asked. 

Sir Philip and his#eldest son.” 

‘‘And Oswald Cray ?” 

“ Of course. He came down on 
purpose.”, 

“ My goodness I And so they met ! 
How did they behave, Richard ?” 

“Just as the rest of us behaved. 
Did you suppose they’d start a quar- 
rel ?” 

“I am sure of it. I know they 
could never meet without starting 
one. Nothing less could come of 
Oswald Cray’s proud spirit and the 
manner they have treated him.” 

“ At sea as usual, Bettina. Do you 
think they’d quarrel there — on that 


solemn occasion ? Oswald Cray and 
Sir Philip are proud enough, both of 
them ; but they are gentlemen — you 
forget that, Bettina. I think Oswald 
Cray is about the least likely man to 
quarrel that I know, whether with 
Sir Philip or with anybody else. 
Your proud man washes his hands 
of people whom he despises ; but be 
does not quarrel with them.” 

How singularly true were the words 
in regard to Oswald Cray ! It was 
as though Dr. Davenal possessed the 
gift of prevision: “Your proud man 
washes his hands of people whom he 
despises.” 

“ And how is her money left ?” con- 
tinued Miss Bettina, “ To the Ste- 
phensons ?” 

“ No, she has not made a just will. 
It is left to — to a stranger — a stranger 
in blood,” 

“ Indeed ! To whom ? I hope you 
have been remembered with some 
little token, Richard ?” 

“ To be sure I have been. You 
know those two splendid diamond 
rings of hers: I have got one, Os- 
wald Cray the other. And that’s all 
be has got, by the way, except a silver 
coffee-pot, or so. Sara, come with 
me into the garden, I wish to have a 
little chat with you.” 

“You have not told me who the 
stranger is,” shrieked out Miss Bettina. 

“ I’ll tell you by-and-by,” called 
back the doctor. 

“ I did not think it likely she would 
leave anything to Oswald Cray, papa,” 
Sara remarked, as they paced the gar- 
den path. 

“ I think I should, had I been in 
her place. A matter of five hundred 
pounds, or so, would have helped him 
on wonderfully. However, there was 
no obligation, and it is a question 
whether Oswald would have accepted 
it,” 

“ You said it was not a just will, . 
papa ?” 

“ I could have gone further than 
that, Sara, and stigmatized it as a 
very unjust one. Those poor Ste- 
phensons, who have been expecting 
this money — who have had a right to 


148 


OSWALD CRAY. 


expect it — are cut off with a paltry 
fifty pounds each and the furniture.” 

“ Oh, papa ! And are they not 
very poor 

‘‘ So poor that I believe honestly 
they have not always bread to eat. 
They carry the signs of it in their 
countenances.” 

“ And for Lady Oswald to have left 
her money away from them I To 
whom has she left it 

‘‘ To one who has no right to it, 
who never expected it.” 

‘‘ I suppose you mean Sir Philip ?” 

‘‘No, it is not left to him. But 
now, give me your opinion, Sara. Let 
os for argumenPa sake put ourselves 
in the position of this fortunate leg- 
atee. Suppose— suppose, my dear, 
it were left to you — this money to 
which you have no claim, no right, 
but to which others have a claim — 
how should you feel ?” 

“ I should feel uncomfortable,” re- 
plied Sara. “ I should feel that I 
was enriched at the expense of others ; 
I am sure that I should feel almost 
as though I had committed a fraud. 
Papa,” she added more eagerly, the 
idea occurring to her, “ I should wish 
to give the money back to them.” 

“ That is the very argument I have 
been using myself, not five minutes 
ago. Wedderburn, Lady Oswald^s 
lawyer, was here talking of the mat- 
ter, and I told him that were I the 
man to whom it was left I should give 
it back, every shilling of it, to the 
channel where it ought at once to 
have gone — the brothers Stephenson. 
Wedderburn did not agree with me ; 
he brought forward the argument that 
the man^s children might reproach 
him afterwards. What do you think ?” 

“ I think, papa, were I the man you 
speak of, I should act upon my own 
judgment and give it back, without 
reference to the opinion of my chil- 
dren.” 

“ That is precisely what he has re- 
solved to do. Sara, the money is left 
to me.” 

Sara Davenal, taken completely by 
surprise, halted and looked at the 
ioctor. 


“It is true, Sara. I find I am the 
favored legatee of Lady Oswald : 
knowing at the same time that I have 
no more right to be so than have those 
espalier rose trees at your side. I 
have resolved to refuse the money ; 
to repudiate the will altogether, as far 
as my share in it goes ; and to suffer 
a previous will to be acted upon, 
which gives the money to the Ste- 
phensons. I trust my children will 
not hereafter turn round and reproach 
me.” 

“ Oh, papa !” 

She spoke the words now almost 
reproachfully. 

“ Yes, I shall do it, Sara. And 
yet,” he added, his voice insensibly 
sinking to a whisper, “ I have press- 
ing need for money just now : and 
the help this would be to me no one 
but myself knows. It is some thou- 
sands.” 

Sara was silent. A shiver had 
passed over her face at this allusion. 
She did not dare to speak. The sub- 
ject was too painful, and, besides, she 
was kept partially in the dark. 

“But I cannot tamper with my 
conscience,” resumed Dr. Davenal. 
“ Were I to take this money, it would 
only lie like a weight upon it for my 
whole future life. I believe — and, 
Sara, I wish you. to believe it and 
treasure it as an assured truth — that 
money appropriated by ourselves, 
which in point of right, of justice, 
belongs to others,, never comes home 
to us with a blessing. However fairly 
the law may give it us, however le- 
gitimate our claim may be deemed by 
the world, if we deprive othei^a ^ it 
whose it is by every moral and — may 
I say it ? — divine right, that money 
will not bless us or our children. 
Sara, I speak this from the experience 
of an observant life.” 

“ I am sure you are right, papa,” 
she murmured. “ Do not keep this 
money.” 

“ I shall not. But, Sara,”— and Dr. 
Davenal stopped in his walk, and his 
voice grew solemn in its tone as he 
laid his hand upon her — “ things have 
changed with me. I thought 1 was 


OSWALD CRAY. 


149 


laying up a competency for my chil- 
dren ; not a great one, it is true, but 
one that would have kept them above 
the frowns of the world. This, my 
hard-earned savings, I have had to 
fling away. It may be, that I shall 
now have to leave you, my cherished 
daughter, to the world’s mercy ; per- 
haps — I know not — compelled to work 
for your living. Should this misfor- 
tune come, you will not cast back a 
reflection on your dead father, and 
reproach him for the rejection of these 
thousands.” 

The tears were streaming down her 
cheeks. Her pleading hand, her lov- 
ing look, gave the first answer. ** You 
could not keep the money, papa. It 
would not be right in God’s sight. 
Do not hesitate.” 

have not hesitated, Sara. My 
mind has been made up from the first. 
But I preferred to speak to you.” 

Neal came forward to summon Dr. 
Da venal. He was being waited for. 
Sara turned to rejoin her aunt. 

You can tell her about this legacy 
to me, Sara ; it will be the talk of the 
town before the day’s out. And ex- 
plain to her why I decline it.” 

The afternoon drew to a close. Dr. 
Davenal, engaged with a succession 
of patients, scarcely noticed its pro- 
gress. He was wishing to see Mr. 
Oswald Cray, and hoped he would 
call. When dinner-tinie arrived, and 
he had not come, that note previously 
mentioned was pencilled, and Neal 
was despatched with it. 

The man brought the message back 
in due course : Mr. Oswald Cray 
was unable to call upon the doctor, as 
he was departing for town.’^ Dr. 
Davenal was disappointed ; he had 
wished to explain to Oswald Cray his 
intentions respecting the money ; he 
considered it due to Oswald to do so. 

How is it that there are times when 
an idea, apparently without any cause 
to lead to it, any reason to justify it, 
takes sudden possession of the mind ? 
Even as Neal spoke, such an idea took 
possession of Dr. Davenal. He fan- 
cied that Oswald Cray was in some 
way not pleased at the disposition of 


Lady Oswald’s property ; was, more 
or less, resenting its being left to Dr. 
Davenal. This only made the doctor 
doubly desirous of seeing him. But, 
Oswald Cray having left, there was 
no chance of doing so at present. 

Dr. Davenal put on his hat, and 
went out to take a walk as far as Lady 
Oswald’s. He found the Rev. Mr. 
Stephenson alone. His brother had 
gone away. The clergyman received 
him somewhat awkwardly. He had 
been brooding over his disappoint- 
ment ; had been thinking what a cry- 
ing wrong it was that the money 
should be left to the flourishing and 
wealthy physician. Dr. Davenal, who 
put as many guineas into his pocket 
daily, as would keep him and his 
family in their humble way for months. 
He was casting his anxious thoughts 
to the future, wondering how his chil- 
dren were to be educated, foreseeing, 
nothing but embarrassment and strug- 
gle to the very end of his life ; and I 
am not sure that his heart, at that 
moment, towards that one man, was 
not full of envy, hatred, malice, and 
all uncharitableness. 

Being in this frame of mind, it a 
little confused the reverend gentleman 
to see the object of his envy standing 
before him. Dr. Davenal drew for- 
ward a seat. 

I dare say, Mr. Stephenson, if the 
truth were known, you are at this 
very moment bestowing upon me 
plenty of hard names.” 

It was so exceedingly like what 
Mr. Stephenson had been doing, that 
all the reply he could make was a 
confused stammer. Dr. Davenal, who 
for the time appeared to have put 
away his heavy care, resumed in a 
frank, free tone. 

I have no right to the money, 
have I ? It ought to have gone to 
you and your brother ?” 

Well, sir — perhaps you had been 
led to expect it by Lady Oswald,” 
was the clergyman's answer. Of a 
timid and refined nature, he could not, 
to Dr. Davenal ’s face, express his 
sense of the wrong. With Dr. Dave- 
nal before him, cordial and open, he 


150 


OSWALD CRAY. 


began to think the wrong less. That 
is, that it was not so much the doctor^s 
fault, as he had been angrily thinking. 

No, she never led me to expect 
any thing of the sort ; and you cannot 
be more surprised than I am at it^s 
being left to me,” said the doctor. 
** When Mr. Wedderburn came to me 
with the news, I could not believe 
him. However, it appears to be the 
fact.” 

Yes,” meekly rejoined the clergy- 
man ; it is.” 

And I have now come to inform 
you, that I shall not take the money, 
Mr. Stephenson. Not a stiver of it. 
The will, so far as it concerns me, 
may be regarded as a dead letter for 
all practical use. I have desired Mr. 
Wedderburn to transfer the money to 
you and your brother ; and if this may 
not legally be, if I must, despite my 
wish, accept the money, I shall take 
it only to restore it to you. You will 
not be too proud to accept it from 
me ?” 

Was he listening to fact ? — or was 
be in a dream ? The words, to the 
minister’s ear, did not savor of reality. 
His pale face grew moist with emotion, 
his trembling hands entwined their 
thin fingers together. He did not 
dare to ask. Is it real ? lest the an- 
swer should dissolve the illusion. 

‘‘ I could not accept of this great 
sum to the prejudice of others who 
have a right to it,” resumed Dr. Dav- 
enal. I should fear its proving 
something like ill-gotten gains, that 
bring evil with them, instead of good. 
The money shall be yours and your 
brother’s, Mr. Stephenson, just as 
surely as though it had been left to 
you by Lady Oswald. The diamond 
ring 1 shall keep and value, but not a 
shilling of the money. I thought I 
would come up and tell you this.” 

The tears were welling into that 
poor gentleman’s eyes, as he rose and 
clasped the hand of Dr. Davenal. If 
you could see what I have suffered ; 
if you could only imagine the struggle 
life has been to me, you would know 
what I feel at this moment. Heaven 
send its blessing on your generosity !” 


The doctor quitted him. He had 
found a heavy heart, he left i\ ^!ad 
one. He quitted him and went forth 
into the stillness of the autumn night. 

He glanced towards the bright stars 
as he walked along, thinking of the 
future. And a prayer went up from 
his heart to the throne of Heaven — 
that, if it was God’s will, his children 
might not feel hereafter the sacrifice 
he had made — that God would bless 
them and be merciful to them when 
he should be gone. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

COMPANY FOR MR. OSWALD CRAY. 

For some days subsequent to the 
interview with Neal, and that valua- 
ble servant’s startling communication, 
Mr. Oswald Cray remained in what 
may be called a sea of confusion. The 
unhappy circumstances attendant on 
Lady Oswald’s death never left his 
mind ; the strange suspicions first 
arising naturally, as they did arise, 
and then augmented by Neal’s dis- 
closure, seemed to be ever waging hot 
war within him, for they were entirely 
antagonistic to sober reason, to his 
life-long experience of Dr. Davenal. 

It cannot be denied that Oswald 
Cray, calm of temperament, sound of 
judgment though he was, did fall into 
the snare that the web of events had 
woven around him ; and, in the mid- 
night watches, when things wear to 
our senses a weird, ghostlike hue, the 
disagreeable word, murder, suggested 
itself to him oftener than he would 
have cared to confess in broad, matter- 
of-fact daylight. But as the days 
went on, his senses came to him. 
Reason reasserted her empire, and he 
flung the dark doubt from him. It was 
impossible to connect such a crime 
with Dr. Davenal. 

But still, though Oswald Cray shook 
off the worst view, he could not forget 
the suspicious circumstances. Perhaps 
it was next to impossible, knowing 


OSWALD CRAY. 


151 


what he did know of the doctor’s sen- 
timents as to chloroform, hearing, as 
he had heard, Neal’s account of the 
words spoken at the midnight in- 
terview, that he could shake them 
off. They turned and twisted them- 
selves about in his mind, in spite of 
him ; he would have given much to 
get rid of them, but he could not. 
Now taking one phase, now another, 
now looking dark, now light, there 
they were, like so many phantoms, 
ever springing up from different cor- 
ners of his mind, and putting legiti- 
mate thoughts out of it. Up or in 
bed, at work or at rest, these conflict- 
ing arguments were ever dancing at- 
tendance on him, until from sheer per- 
plexity his brain would seem to lose 
its subtle powers, and grow dull in 
very weariness. 

The conclusion to which he at length 
came, and in which he finally settled 
down, was, that Dr. Davenal had been 
in a partial degree guilty. He could 
not think he had given that chloroform 
to Lady Oswald with the deliberate 
view of taking her life, as some of our 
worst criminals have done ; but he 
did believe there was some hidden 
culpability attached to it. Could it 
have been given in forgetfulness ? — 
or by way of experiment ? — or care- 
lessly ? Oswald Cray asked himself 
these questions ten times in a day. 
No, no, reason answered ; Dr. Dave- 
nal was not a man to forget, or to 
make experiments, or to do things 
carelessly. And then, with the an- 
swer, rose the one wild, awful doubt, 
again, tormenting him not less with 
its darkness than with its preposterous 
absurdity. 

What weighed on his mind more 
than all the rest was, that he could 
see no solution, or chance of solution, 
to the question, why chloroform was 
administered, why even it was taken to 
the house. Had Dr. Davenal frankly 
answered him when questioned, I 
thought, in spite of my conversation 
with you, that chloroform might be 
ventured upon with safety, that it 
would ease her sufferings, and was 
absolutely necessary to calm her state 


of excitement,” why, he could have 
had no more to say. But Dr. Davenal 
had answered nothing of the kind. 
On the contrary, he had been myste- 
rious over it, and at length flatly re- 
fused to satisfy him at all. So far a- 
Oswald Cray could see, there was n^ 
other solution that could be arrived 
at, save that the chloroform had been 
administered wilfully and deliberately. 
If so, then with what view had Dr. 
Davenal 

At this point Oswald Cray always 
pulled his thoughts up, or strove to 
do so, and plunged desperately into 
another phase of the affair. Once he 
caught himself wondering whether, if 
the doctor had been deliberately guilty, 
it lay in his duty — bis, Oswald Cray’s 
— to bring him to account for it. No 
living being save himself, so far as he 
knew, had been cognizant of Dr. Dave- 
nal’s strong opinion of chloroform, if 
applied to Lady Oswald. Ought he, 
then, not only by the obligation which 
lies upon all honest men to bring 
crime to light, but as a relative of 
Lady Oswald’s, ought he to be the 
Nemesis, and denounce 

With a quicker beating of the heart, 
with a burning flush upon his brow, 
Oswald Cray started from the train 
of thought. Into what strange gulf 
was it carrying him ? Ah, not though 
it had been his fate to see the crime 
committed, and to know that it was a 
crime, would he be the one to bring it 
home to Richard Davenal I — the man 
v/hom he had so respected ; the father 
of her who possessed his best love, and 
would possess it in spite of his efforts 
to withdraw it, for all time ? No ; 
not against Mm could his hand be 
raised in judgment. 

In spite of his efforts to withdraw 
his love ? Had it come to that with 
Oswald Cray ? Indeed it had. He 
could not fathom the affair, it remained 
to him utterly incomprehensible ; but 
that Dr. Davenal was in some way or 
other compromised by it, terribly com- 
promised, seemed as plain as the sun 
at noonday. And Mr. Oswald Cray, 
in his haughty spirit, his besetting 
pride, decided that he could no longer 


152 


OSWALD CRAY. 


be on terms of friendship with him, 
and that Sara Davenal must be no 
wife of his. 

What it cost him to come to this 
resolution of casting her adrift, none 
save heaven knows. The struggle 
r^ained on his memory for years 
after\vards as the sorest pain life had 
ever brought him. It was the bitter 
turning-point which too many of us 
have to arrive at and pass ; the divid- 
ing link which dashes away the sunny 
meads, the flowery paths of life’s 
young romance, and sends us stum- 
bling and shivering down the stony 
road of reality. None knew, none 
ever would know, what that struggle 
had been to Oswald Cray. 

Not a struggle as to the course he 
shcMild pursue — the breaking off inti- 
macy with her : never for a single 
moment did he hesitate in that. The 
struggle lay with his feelings, with 
his own heart, where she w^as entwined 
with its every fibre ; part and parcel 
of its very self. He strove to put 
her out thence, and she would not be 
put out. There she remained, and he 
was conscious that there she would 
remain for many a dreary year to 
come. 

But for his overweening pride, how 
different things might have been I 
He was too just a man to include 
Sara in the doctor’s — dare he say it ? 
— crime. Although Neal had said 
that Miss Sara Davenal had been 
made cognizant of it, Oswald did not 
attach to her one iota of blame. She 
was no more responsible for the 
doctor’s acts than he was, neither 
could she help them. No, he did not 
cast a shadow of reproach upon her ; 
she had done nothing to forfeit his 
love ; but she was her father’s 
daughter, and, therefore, no fit wife 
for him. One whose pride was less 
in the ascendant than Mr. Oswald 
Cray’s, whose self-esteem was less 
sensitively fastidious, might have 
acted upon this consciousness of her 
immunity from blame and set himself 
to see whether there was not a way 
out of the dilemma, rather than have 
given her up, off-hand, at the very 


first onset. He might have gone in 
his candor to Dr. Davenal and said, 

I love your daughter ; I had wished 
to make her my wife ; tell me frankly 
and confidentially, is there a reason 
why I, an honorable man, should 
not ?” Not so Mr. Oswald Cray and 
his haughty pride. Without a single 
moment of hesitation, he shook him- 
self free from all further contact with 
the daughter of Dr. Davenal, and now 
he was trying to shake her from his 
heart. Never more, never more, 
might he look forward to the life of 
happiness he had been wont to pic- 
ture. 

It was a cruel struggle ; and the 
red flush of shame mantled to his 
brow as he thought of the binding 
words he had spoken to her, and the 
dishonor that must accrue to him in 
breaking them. There was not a man 
on the face of the earth whose sense 
of honor was more keen than Oswald 
Cray’s; who was less capable of wil- 
fully doing aught to tarnish it ; and yet 
that tarnishing was thrust upon him. 
Any way, it seemed that a great stain 
must fall upon it.. To take one to be 
his wife whose father was a suspected 
man, would be a blot indeed ; and to 
forget the words he had spoken, never 
more to take notice of her or them, 
would be scarcely less so. He felt it 
keenly ; he, the man of unblemished 
conduct, and, it may be said, of un- 
blemished heart. 

But still, he did not for a moment 
hesitate. Great as the pain was to 
himself, little as she, in her innocence, 
deserved that the slight should be in- 
flicted on her, he never wavered in 
that which he knew must be. The 
only question was, how it should be 
best done. Should he speak to her ? — 
or should he gradually drop all inti- 
macy and let the fact become known 
to her in that way ? Which would be 
the kindlier course ? That the separ- 
ation would be productive of the ut- 
most pain to her as to him, that she 
loved him with all the fervor of a 
first and pure attachment, he knew ; 
and he felt for her to his heart’s core. 
He hated himself for having to inflict 


OSWALD CRAY. 


153 


this pain, and he heartily wished, as 
things had turned out, that he had 
never yielded to the pleasure of be- 
coming intimate at Dr. DavenaPs. 
Well, which should be his course ? 
Oswald Cray sat over his fire one cold 
evening after business was over, and 
deliberated upon it. He leaned his 
elbow on the arm of his chair, and 
bent his cheek on his hand, and gazed 
abstractedly on the fire. He shrank 
from the very idea of speaking to her. 

Ho formal engagement existed be- 
tween them ; and he would scarcely 
be justified in saying to her, I can- 
not marry you now,” considering that 
he had never in so many words asked 
her to marry him at all. It might be 
regarded as a gratuitous insult. 

But, putting that aside, he did not 
see his way clear to speak to her. 
What reason could he give for his 
withdrawal ? He could not set it 
down to his own caprice ; and he 
could not — no, he could not — put forth 
to her the plea of her father’s misdoing. 
He began to think it might be better 
to maintain silence, and so let the past 
and its words die away. If 

He was aroused from his train of 
thought by the entrance of a woman — 
a woman in a black bonnet, and sleeves 
turned up to the elbow, with a rather 
crusty expression of face. This was 
Mrs. Benn, the housekeeper. It did 
not lie in Mrs. Bonn’s province to wait 
on Mr. Oswald Cray, or she would 
probably have attired herself more in 
accordance with her duty. It was her 
husband’s duty, and he had been sent 
out this evening by Mr. Oswald Cray 
on business connected with the firm. 
On cleaning days — and they occurred 
twice in the week — Mrs. Benn was 
wont to make her appearance in the 
morning in a black bonnet, and keep 
it on until she went to bed. It was 
not worn as bonnets are worn usually ; 
the crown behind and the brim before ; 
but was perched right on the top of 
her head, brim downwards : and Mrs. 
Benn was under a firm persuasion that 
this kept her hair and her cap free 
from the dust she was wont to raise in 
sweeping. She was about forty, but 


looked fifty, her face had got a patch 
of black lead upon it, and a nail had 
torn a rent in her check apron. 

Wouldn’t you like the things taken 
away, sir?” she asked in a tone as 
crusty as her look ; I am waiting to 
wash ’em up.” 

This recalled Oswald Cray’s atten- 
tion to the fact that the remains of his 
dinner were yet upon the table. He 
believed he had rung for them to be 
taken away when he turned to the 
fire ; and there he had sat, never no- 
ticing that they were not removed. 
It was now a little past seven, and 
Mrs. Benn had grown angry and in- 
dignant at waiting. 

I declare I thought they had been 
taken away,” he said. I suppose 
the bell did not ring. I am sure I 
touched it.” 

‘^Ho bell have rung at all,” re- 
turned Mrs. Benn resentfully. I 
stood down there with my hands 
afore me till the clock had gone seven, 
and then I thought I’d come up and 
see what was keeping ’em. You 
haven’t eat much this evening, sir,’^ 
she added, looking at the dish of steak 
and the potatoes. ^^I don’t think you 
have eat much lately. Don’t you feel 
well ?” 

“ Well ? I am very well,” he replied 
carelessly, rising from his chair and 
stretching himself. Is Benn not 
back yet ?” 

“ No, he is not back,” she returned, 
her tone becoming rather an explosive 
one, boding no good for the absent 
Mr. Benn. He don’t seem to hurry 
himself, he don’t, though he knows if 
he didn’t get back I should have to 
come up here : and very fit I be on 
my cleaning days to appear before a 
gentleman.” 

‘‘ Is it necessary to clean in a bon- 
netl^” asked Oswald quietly. 

It’s necessary to clean in some- 
thing, sir, to protect one’s head from 
the fluff and stuff that collects. One 
would wonder where it comes from, 
all in a week. I used to tie a apron 
over my cap, but it was always com- 
ing off, or else blowing its corners into 
the way of one’s eyes.” 


154 


OSWALD CRAY. 


Oswald laughed. He remembered 
the apron era, and the guy Mrs. Benn 
looked. For twelve years had she 
and her husband been the servants of 
that house. Formerly, Mr. Bracknell, 
an old bachelor, had lived in it, and 
Benn and his wife waited on him, as 
they now did on Mr. Oswald Cray. 

Would you like tea this evening, 
eir she inquired. For sometimes 
Oswald took tea and sometimes did 
not. 

Yes ; if you bring it up directly. 
I am going out.” 

She went away with her tray of 
things. Down the first flight of stairs, 
past the ofiices, and down again to the 
kitchen. The ground floor of this 
house in Parliament Street was occu- 
pied by the oflices of the firm, as also 
were some portions of the floors above. 
Oswald Cray had two or three rooms 
for his own use ; his sitting room, not 
a very large one, being on the first 
floor. 

His train of thought had been bro- 
ken by the woman, and he did not 
recall it. He stepped into an adjoin- 
ing apartment, lighted a shaded lamp, 
sat down, and began examining a 
drawing of some projected improve- 
ments in an engine boiler. Pencil in 
hand, he was deep in tubes, cylinders, 
wheels, and various other mysteries 
pertaining to engineering when he 
heard Mrs. Benn coming with the tea- 
tray. He finished marking off certain 
lines and strokes on a blank sheet of 
paper — which he did after a queer 
fashion, his eyes fixed on the drawing, 
and his fingers only appearing to guide 
the pencil — before he went in. 

Oswald^s china tea-service had been 
handsome once — or rather Mr. Brack- 
nelPs, for it was to that gentleman the 
things in the house belonged ; but 
Mrs. Benn had what she herself called 
a heavy hand at breakage,” and two 
or three cups and saucers were all 
that remained. As it stood, it was by 
no means a handsome tea equipage. 
The tea-pot was black, with a chipped 
spout j and the milk-jug was black, 
with a fray on its handle ; and the 
china tea-cup was cracked. Oswald 


had desired Mrs. Benn to buy him a 
decent tea-pot, but Mrs. Benn consid- 
ered it would be so much money 
wasted while he might use her black 
one. He had silently resolved to go 
into one of the Brittania metal shops 
and buy one for himself, but somehow 
he never thought of it at the right 
time ; and the black tea pot came up 
still, every evening that he chose to 
take tea. 

He poured himself out a cup, stirred 
it, and then went for the sheet of pa- 
per on which he had been making 
the strokes and scrawls. Mrs. Benn 
knew her master well. He had said 
he was going out, but he was just as 
likely to remain over these strokes all 
the evening ; perhaps, even, in forget- 
fulness keep her tea-things up until ten 
o^clock, or until she went for them. 
Oswald Cray was one whose heart 
was in his profession, and the work 
was more pleasant to him than idle- 
ness. 

He was busy still over this paper, 
neglecting his tea, when Mrs. Benn 
came in again. He thought she had 
come very soon for her tea-tray to- 
night. But she had not come for 
that. 

Here’s company now, sir I A 
young lady wants to see you.” 

A young lady 1” repeated Oswald. 

To see me ?” 

Well, I suppose she’s a young 
lady — from what one can see of her 
through her black veil ; but she come 
to my kitchen bell only, when the 
knocker was a-staring her right in the 
face,” returned Mrs. Benn. She 
asked for you, sir. I said, was it any 
message I could take^^up, but she says 
she wants to speak to you herself.” 

You can sliow her up.” 

Mrs. Benn accomplished this pro- 
cess in a summary manner. Going 
down-stairs to the hall, where she 
had left the applicant she briefly said 
to her, ‘‘ You can go up. First door 
you come to that’s open,” — and then 
left the lady to find her way. Had 
her husband, Benn, been at home, he 
would have asked her what she meant 
by introducing a visitor in that fashion 


OSWALD CRAY. 


to Mr. Oswald Cray ; and he would 
probably have got for answer a sharp 
order to mind his own business. In 
point of fact, Mrs. Benn, on cleaning 
days, had neither time nor temper to 
waste on superfluous ceremony. 

Oswald Cray had bent over his paper 
again, attaching little importance to 
the advent of the visitor ; he supposed 
it might be’some messenger from one 
or other of the clerks. The footfall on 
the stairs was soft and light ; Oswald’s 
back was to the door, and his lines and 
marks were absorbing his attention. 

Mr. Oswald Cray 

It was a sweet and pleasant and 
sensible voice, with the slightest pos- 
sible Scotch accent perceptible to Eng- 
lish ears. It was the voice of a lady, 
and Oswald Cray started up hastily, 
pencil in hand. 

A short, slight, very young-looking 
woman, with a fair face and blue eyes, 
stood before him. Strictly speaking, 
there was no beauty whatever in the 
face, but it was so fair, so frank, so 
honest, with its steady good sense and 
its calm blue eyes, that Oswald Cray 
warmed to it at once. She was dressed 
plainly in black, and she threw back 
her crape veil to speak — as most sensi- 
ble women like to do. To Oswald’s 
eyes, seeing her by that light, she 
looked about one or two and twenty : 
her light complexion, her small fea- 
tures, and her slight figure, were all of 
that type that look young a long while. 
In his surprise he did not for the mo- 
ment speak, and she repeated the 
words, not as a question this time — 

You are Mr. Oswald Cray.” 

“ That is my name,” he answered, 
recovering his equanimity. May 
I ” 

I come from my brother, Frank' 
Allister,” she interrupted. ^^I am 
Jane Allister.” 

She pronounced the name Jean,” 
as she had in fact been christened, but 
it generally gets corrupted into Jane 
by English ears and English tongues. 
Oswald so interpreted it. His whole 
face lighted up with a smile of wel- 
come ; it may be said of recognition. 


155 

He had heard so much of this \ood 
sister from his friend Frank Allister. 

I am so glad you have come to 
him !” he warmly exclaimed, taking 
her hand. Frank has almost pined 
for you : but he did not expect you 
yet. I seem to know you quite well : 
he has talked so much of you.” 

‘‘ Thank you ; I’ll take it,” she said 
in answer to the chair he offered. 
'' And I will take off my fur,” she 
added, unwinding a boa from her neck, 
and untying her bonnet strings. 

Your room feels very warm to one 
coming in from the keen air outside.” 

There was something in her frank 
manners that struck most pleasingly 
on the mind of vOswald. She sat there 
as confidingly in his room as though 
he had been her brother : a good, 
modest, single-minded woman, whom 
even a bad man could not but respect. 

Yes, I came before Frank expected 
me,” she said. ^^I did not think I 
could have come so soon ; but my 
friends kindly released me. Y ou know 
my position — why I could not come 
to him before ?” 

I know that you are” — Oswald 
hesitated for a moment, and then 
went bravely on. Before that clear 
eye of plain good sense there was no 
need to mince the matter, and pretend 
ignorance. 

‘‘I know that you are companion- 
attendant to a lady. And that you 
could not leave her.” 

^^I have been companion and maid 
to her all in one,” said Miss Allister. 
*^When I and Frank had to go out 
into the world, and do the best we 
could for ourselves, I was obliged to 
look out for what I was most fitted 
for. Our uncle offered to help Frank, 
and he paid the premium for him to 
this house, and assisted him otherwise, 
and I was very glad it should be so — ” 

You mean Mr. Brown?” inter- 
rupted Oswald. 

Yes. He lived in London. My 
mother was English born and reared. 
He was a good friend to us as long as 
he lived. It was necessary that I 
should go out ; and a situation became 


156 


OSWALD CRAY. 


vacant in a lady’s family, Mrs. Gra- 
ham. She wanted some one who 
would be her companion, sit with her, 
read to her, some one well reared, of 
whom she might make an equal, but 
who would at the same time act as 
maid ; and I took it. But perhaps 
you have heard all this from Frank 

No, not these details. Though 
he has talked of you very much. He 
has told me” — Oswald broke into a 
frank smile as he said it — that his 
sister Jane was worth her weight in 
gold.” 

“ I should be sorry to think that 
most sisters are not worth as much as 
I am,” she gravely answered. I 
have but done my duty, so far as I 
could do it. When Frank found I 
acted as maid to Mrs. Graham, he 
was very much put out, and wanted 
me to give up the situation, and seek 
'another. But I laughed at him for a 
proud boy, and I have stayed on until 
now. What am I the worse for it ? 
I dressed her, and served her, and 
when of late years she got ill and help- 
less, I nursed and fed her. I had 
become so useful to her — I may say, 
BO indispensable — that when news 
reached me of Frank’s illness, I could 
not quit her to come to him. I tried 
to see which way my duty lay ; to 
leave her for my sick brother, or to 
leave my brother to strangers, and stay 
with my dying and helpless friend and 
mistress. Every week we expected 
would be her last ; she has been 
dying these three months ; and I felt 
that it would be wrong to abandon 
her. That, you see, is why I could 
not come to Frank.” 

Is she dead ?” asked Oswald. 

Oh, yes. This mourning I am 
wearing is for her. And I came away 
as soon as possible after the funeral. 
We had a long and bad passage, and 
I did not reach Frank until three 
o’clock this afternoon.” 

“ You should have come by land,” 
observed Oswald. 

‘‘Nay, but that would have cost 
more,” she simply answered. “ And 
I knew that Frank was so far better, 
as to be in no vital hurry for my pre- 


sence. I have come to you, sir, this 
evening to ask your opinion of his 
state. Will you be so kind as to give 
it me ?” 

“ First of all, will you permit me to 
invite you to take a cup of tea ?” re- 
plied Oswald, turning round to look 
at the tray, which was on the oppo- 
site side of the table, next the door. 

“ No, I thank you,” she replied, 
“ I gave Frank his tea before I came 
out, and took some with him. But 
will you let me pour out a cup for 
you ? I saw that I interrupted you.” 

Before Oswald could decline, she 
had taken her gloves off, and was 
round at the tray, putting it in order. 
That a bachelor had been doing the 
honors of the ceremony was only too 
apparent. The teapot was stuck on 
the side of the tray, spout forwards ; 
the milk-jug was not on the tray at 
all, but ever so far away on the table. 
Jane Allisterhad put all this to rights 
in a twinkling, and was pouring the 
slop of cold tea out of his cup into the 
basin. 

“ Not for me,” said Oswald, feeling 
as if he had known her for years. 
“You are very kind, but I have taken 
all I wish.” 

“ Nay, not kind at all,” she said, 
looking at him with some surprise. 
“ I’d have been glad to do it for you.” 

Oswald had risen, and she came 
back from the tea-tray, and stood by 
him on the hearth-rug. Her bonnet 
still untied, her gloves off, her face 
and attitude full of repose, she looked 
as one in her own home. 

“ You’ll tell me freely what you 
think of Frank ?” 

There was not the slightest shade 
of doubt in her voice ; she evidently 
expected that he would tell it her ; 
tell it her freely, as she asked for it. 
She stood with her fair face raised, 
her candid blue eyes thrown full up 
to his. 

Oswald drew her chair forward for 
her, and took his own, pausing before 
he spoke. In good truth he scarcely 
knew what was his opinion of Frank 
Allister. It was one of those cases 
where the patient seems at death’s 


OSWALD CRAY. 


15^9 


door, and then, to the surprise of all, 
the disease takes a sudden turn, and 
appears to be almost gone. In the 
previous month, October, Oswald 
Cray had believed that a few days 
must see the end of Frank Allister : 
and now, at the close of November, 
he was apparently getting well. 

I do not quite know how to an- 
swer you,’^ Oswald began. Five or 
six weeks ago, Frank was so ill that 
I did not think there remained the 
least chance for him, but he has 
changed in a wonderful manner. 
But for the ” 

For the what she asked, Mr. 
Oswald Cray having brought his 
words to an abrupt stand-still. 
am sure you will tell me the full 
truth. I must know it for my own 
guidance ; I have come to nurse 
him.” 

Yes, I will tell it you,” said Os- 
wald. I was about to say that, but 
for the deceitfulness which is so often 
characteristic of the disease, I should 
believe him to be getting well. Re- 
member that I fear it is not a real 
improvement.” 

Jane Allister paused. Some pa- 
tients have displayed every symptom 
of his disease, have suffered much, 
yet they have eventually recovered.” 

That is true,” he assented. “There 
have been such instances. I wish I 
could satisfy you better, but indeed I 
do not know what to think. Mr. 
Bracknell asked me a day or two 
ago how Allister was getting on, and 
I answered him as I answer you— 
that I really could not tell.” 

“When I reached my brother’s to- 
day and saw how Well he appeared to 
be, so different from what I had ex- 
pected to find him, I could not help 
expressing my surprise,” said Miss 
Allister. “ Frank gayly told me that 
his illness and its supposed danger 
had been all a mistake, and that he 
had taken a new lease of life. I did 
not know what to think, what to be- 
lieve ; and I determined to come here 
and ask your opinion. I could not, 
you know, ask you before him.” 

“And I cannot give you a decisive 


one,” repeated Oswald. “ I can only 
hope that this improvement may lead 
to a complete restoration ; and I 
should think it would, but for the 
treacherous nature of the disease. 
Frank does certainly appear wonder- 
fully strong and well. Even the doc- 
tor cannot say that it' will not end in 
recovery. ” 

“ Frank wrote me word that you 
had sent a physician to him, and that 
his opinion was unfavorable. But 
that was when he was at the worst. 
You have been truly kind to him, 
Mr. Cray, and when I came here to- 
night I felt that I was coming to a 
friend.” 

“I should like to be your friend 
always,” returned Oswald in an un- 
usual impulse. “ I seem to have been 
so a long while, Frank has talked to 
me so much of you.” 

“Do you see him daily ?” 

“Not quite daily since he got bet- 
ter. As often as I can.” 

“It is a long way here,” she re- 
sumed. “But I got misdirected.” 

“You surely did not walk?” ex- 
claimed Oswald. 

“To be sure I walked. Why 
should I not walk?” 

“But it is not right for young ladies 
to be alone at night in the streets of 
London,” a strong wish that he had 
been by to protect her rising within 
him. “It is scarcely safe. Rude 
people might have molested you.” 

“ But I’m not young,” she answered 
steadily. “ I am older than Frank, 
and he must be as old as you. No, I 
don’t believe that ill of London, that 
a decent, quiet body may not wa’lk 
through its lighted thoroughfares 
without being molested. Who’d take 
notice of me ?” 

“You must not walk back.” 

“ How else should I go ?” 

“ There are conveyances — cabs and 
omnibuses.” 

“ But they cost money,” she an- 
swered, with that frank, open plain- 
ness, which, in her, seemed so great a 
charm. “I am not come away to 
London, devoid of means, but they 
will find plenty of out-lets in necessary 


158 


OSWALD CRAY. 


things, without being spent in super- 
fluities. Any way, they must be made 
to last both for Frank and me, until I 
can leave him and go out again. I’d 
not speak of these things to you, Mr. 
Oswald Cray, but that you must have 
heard all particulars of our position 
from Frank.” 

She had risen as she spoke, and was 
now tying her bonnet strings. Os- 
wald picked up a glove which she 
dropped. 

“ And now I’ll wish you good- 
night,” she continued, putting her 
hand frankly into his. And I’d like 
to thank you with all my heart for 
what you have done for Frank, for the 
good friend you have been to him. 
You have brought to him help and 
comfort when there was nobody else 
in the world to bring it. I shall al- 
ways thank you in my heart, Mr. Os- 
wald Cray.” 

Oswald laughed the words off and 
attended her down-stairs, catching up 
his hat as he went through the hall. 
Mrs. Benn and her black bonnet came 
up the kitchen stairs. 

** Good-night,” repeated Jane Al- 
lister. 

“ I am going with you,” said Os- 
wald. 

''No, I could not let you. I shall 
find my way quite well. I will not 
allow you to go out with me.” 

Determination lay in her voice and 
in her eye. Oswald answered in a 
jesting tone. 

" I must walk on the other side of 
the street, then, if you will not permit 
me to walk with you. I was on the 
p oint of starting to see Frank when 
y ou came in, and I shall certainly go. 
I have not seen him for two days.” 

" Then, if that’s the case. I’ll not 
object,” she readily answered. "And 
in truth, as it lies in your way, I shall 
be glad of your company. You’ll not 
tell Frank that I have been asking 
about him.” 

Oswald closed the door behind him 
and offered his arm. She took it at 
once, thanking him in a staid, old- 
fashioned manner. Mrs. Benn drew 
the door open and looked after them. 


" Arm-in-arm !” ejaculated that 
lady. " And he bending of his head 
down to talk to her I Who on earth 
can she be ? — coming after him to his 
house — and stopping up there in the 
parlor — and keeping up of the tea- 
things ! It looks uncommon like as if 
he had took on a sweetheart. Only 

So it’s you at last, is it, Joe Benn ! 

And what do you mean by stopping 
out like this ?” 

The concluding sentences were ad- 
dressed to a respectable- looking man 
who approached the door. It was 
Joseph Benn, her husband, and a 
faithful servant of the firm. 

" I couldn’t make more haste,” he 
quietly answered. 

" Not make more haste ! Don’t 
tell me. Mr. Oswald Cray expected 
you were home an hour ago.” 

" Mr. Oswald Cray will be quite 
satisfied that I have not wasted my 
time when I tell him where I’ve been. 
Is he up-stairs ?” 

" No, be is not,” she sharply an- 
swered. " Satisfied, indeed ! Yes, 
he looked satisfied when he saw me 
going up to wait upon him in this 
trim and to show in his company I 
And me waiting a good mortal hour 
for his dinner-things, which he forgot 
was up ! which couldn’t have hap- 
pened if you’d been at your post to 
wait at table. You go and stop out 
again at his dinner-time, Joe Benn I” 

Joe Benn made no rejoinder; ex- 
perience had taught him that it was 
better not. He passed her, and she 
shut the door with a bang. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

MORE INSTILLED DOUBT. 

The air was keen and frosty, and 
the flags of the streets were white 
and clean, as Oswald Cray walked 
along with Jane Allister in the No- 
vember night. So clear was the 
atmosphere, that the young lady, who 
had heard much of the fogs of London, 


OSWALD CRAY. 


159 


expressed her surprise and gratifica- 
tion. 

Frank, in writing to me, has 
sometimes compared it to a thin cloud 
of pea-soup,^’ she said. I did not 
think it would be bright like this ; 
and this. November.” 

“ You should have seen it a week 
ago,” answered , Oswald Cray. “ It 
was not a thin cloud of pea-soup, but 
pea-soup itself. We do not often get 
this clear weather in November. 
Were you ever in London before ?” 

‘‘ No, never. What a large place 
it is ! and how the streets are crowded ! 
I was quite jostled as I came along.” 

“That jostling is sometimes pre- 
meditated, Miss Allister. I hope you 
did not get your pockets picked.” 

“I had not much to lose,” she 
answered. “But nobody attempted 
to touch me. I do not think this is 
the road I came.” 

“ You came out of your way, no 
doubt.” 

“ Yes, I am sure I did : it was 
very far.” 

“ It is not very far, this way. There 
goes a Brompton omnibus. Had we 
not better get in ?” 

She shook her head in a decisive 
manner. “IVe been used to walking 
all my life, and Ifil not spend money 
where I can save it. I see you would 
be paying for me, but I^d not let that 
be done. Frank has already cost you 
too much. Y oufil let we walk, please. ” 

She was in real earnest, and he said 
no more. He could not but admire 
this straightforward Scotch girl, with 
her open speech, and her plain good 
sense. She was so young in appear- 
ance as to look like a girl, though she 
bad herself told him that she was 
older than Frank. This, as he knew, 
must bring her to about two-and- 
thirty : and in steadiness of manner 
and solid independence she was two- 
aud-forty. 

Reared in her Highland home, in 
every comfort for the earlier years of 
her life, she had had to buffet with the 
world in these later years. Her 
mother, a widow since Frank was 
two years old, had enjoyed a good 


income, but it died with her. The 
uncle in London took Frank, who was 
then a youth ; and Jane had to seek 
a situation. It was not easy to find. 
For a governess she was not quali- 
fied; so many of what are called 
“accomplishments” are essential now- 
a-days, and Jane Allister had not 
learned them. She had received a 
good education, but a strictly plain 
one. 

Waiting and waiting ! No situation 
offered itself ; and when she heard of 
Mrs. Graham’s she was well nigh 
wearied out with the worst of all 
weariness — that of long-continued dis- 
appointment, of hope deferred. But 
for that weariness she might not have 
accepted a place where she was to 
be personal attendant as well as com- 
panion. She took it, determined to 
do her duty in it, to make the very 
best of it ; and when her brother 
Frank wrote to her in a commotion 
from his distant home in London, 
where he was then with Bracknell 
and Street, she began by making the 
very best of it to him, gayly and 
lightly. Frank had the letter yet, in 
which she had jokingly called him — 
as she had just related to Mr. Oswald 
Cray — a proud boy, and recommended 
him to “ bring down” his notions. 
Frank Allister had never been recon- 
ciled to it yet. In conversation re- 
specting his sister with Oswald Cray 
he had called his sister always “ com- 
panion,” not “maid.” As for Jane, 
she had grown reconciled to it ; and 
she had remained there all these years, 
conscientiously doing her duty. 

“ Have you lost a friend lately ?” 
she inquired, in allusion to the crape 
band on Oswald’s hat. 

“ Yes,” he briefly answered, winc- 
ing at the question, could Jane Al- 
lister have seen it. All this time. 
Lady Oswald’s death and the events 
attending it caused an inward shiver 
whenever they were brought to his 
mind. 

“It is a grievous thing to lose 
relatives, if they are dear to us,” re- 
marked Jane. There is an expres- 
sion in your countenance at times, I 


160 


OSWALD CRAY. 


noticed, that told me you had son^e 
source of sorrow.” 

Whatever the expression she had 
noticed on his countenance, she would 
have seen a very marked one now, had 
they been, as before, face to face near 
a table-lamp. The old haughty pride 
came into it, and his brow flushed 
blood-red. Oswald Cray was one of 
the very last to tolerate that his secret 
feelings should be observed or com- 
mented upon. As she spoke, it seemed 
to him as if the pain at his heart was 
laid bare. 

‘^You are drawing a wrong infer- 
ence, Miss Allister,” he coldly said. 

The friend I lost was neither near 
nor very dear to me. She was an old 
lady; a connection of my mother’s 
family ; Lady Oswald.” 

Jane marked the changed tone. 
She concluded the loss was one of 
pain to him, though he did not choose 
to say so, and she gathered her de- 
ductions that he was a man of great 
reticence of feeling. That he was a 
brave man and a good man, one in 
every way worthy of trust, of esteem, 
she knew from Frank long ago. 

Why, Neal ! Is it you ?” 

Mr. Oswald Cray, in his surprise, 
came to an abrupt halt. Turning out 
of the door of a house that they were 
passing, so quickly as nearly to brush 
against him, was Dr. DavenaPs man- 
servant. Neal did not appear in the 
least taken aback. He touched his 
hat and stood §till with just the same 
equanimity that he would ^ve shown 
had he been waiting there specially 
for Mr. Oswald Cray. 

What brings you. to London, Neal ? 
You have surely not left Dr. Dave- 
nal ?” 

Oh, no, sir, I have not left him. 
A brother of mine, sir, has returned 
to England after an absence of many 
years, and a little property of ours 
that couldn’t be touched while he was 
away, is now being divided. I spoke 
to Dr. Davenal, and he gave me leave 
to come.” 

Have you been up long 

Only three days, sir.” 

‘‘ Are they all well at Hallingham ?” 


Quite well, sir. Mr. Cray hurt 
his arm as he was getting out. of the 
doctor’s carriage, and it was bound 
up for a week. But it is better.” 

How did he manage that ?” 

** I don’t think he knows, sir. His 
foot slipped as he was stepping out, 
and he swung round in some way, 
keeping hold of the carriage with his 
hand bent behind. It was rather a 
bad sprain.” 

Miss Davenal is quite well ?” 

Yes, sir. Miss Sara has had a 
cold lately, and waS looking ill, but I 
think it is leaving her. The captain 
went abroad, sir, without coming to 
Hallingham, and they all felt it much.” 

Oswald bade the man good-night 
and walked on. He did not care, in 
his fastidious sensitiveness, to hear 
the looks of Sarah Davenal commented 
on. If she did look ill, was it for his, 
Oswald’s sake ? — or was she haunted 
with that unhappy secret which Neal 
had once so darkly hinted at ? 

Neal stood within the shade of the 
house looking after Mr. Oswald Cray. 
Or rather after the young lady leaning 
on his arm. Neal was very curious 
as to this young lady. While appar- 
ently his whole attention was ab- 
sorbed by his conversation with Mr. 
Oswald Cray, he had been studying 
the face turned to him ; a fair and 
sensible face, as Mr. Neal could read, 
though less good-looking than Miss 
Sara DavenaPs. What with Neal’s 
legitimate observations and his ille- 
gitimate ferreting habits, he had con- 
trived. to arrive at a very ingenious 
conjecture of the tacit relations which 
had existed between Mr. Oswald Cray 
and Dr. DavenaPs daughter ; and Neal 
had of late been entertaining a rather 
shrewd guess that Mr. Oswald Cray 
intended those relations to cease. He 
judged so from the fact that that gen- 
tleman had never once since Lady 
Oswald’s funeral been inside the doc- 
tor’s door. A formal call and a left 
card, during one of his visits to Hal- 
lingham, comprised all Mr. Oswald 
Cray’s attentions since that event. 
From these appearances, Neal drew 
conclusions ; and it perhaps may be 


OSWALD CRAY. 


pardoned a man of NeaVs conclusion- 
drawing mind, that he asked himself 
whether this young lady had super- 
seded Miss Sara. 

It looks uncommonly like it,” he 
repeated to himself, as his eyes fol- 
lowed them in the distance. I 
should like to be certain, and to know 
who she is. She looks like a lady — 
and he^d not take up with anybody 
in that way who was not one. Sup- 
pose I just see where they go ? I 
have nothing particular on my hands 
this evening.” 

Gingerly treading the streets, as 
one who knows he is bent upon some 
surreptitious expedition is apt to tread 
them, Neal stepped along, keeping 
Mr. Oswald Cray and his companion 
in view. After a sufficiently long 
walk, they stopped at a house on the 
confines of Chelsea, bordering upon 
Brompton ; the middle house of a 
row of moderate-sized dwellings, with 
small gardens before the doors. Mr. 
Oswald Cray knocked, and a young 
servant maid admitted them. 

But this left Neal as wise as before. 
He could see the house, could read 
the name of the Terrace, Bangalore 
Terrace,” in large black letters at 
either end ; but this did not tell the 
name of the lady, or who she was ; 
and Bangalore Terrace, though suffi- 
ciently respectable, was certainly not 
the class of terrace to which it might 
be expected Mr. Oswald Cray would 
go for a wife. 

Neal might have remained in his 
ignorance but for a fortunate accident. 
He was taking a last look at the 
house ere he turned away, at the 
light which shone behind the blinds 
of the first-floor windows, when the 
same servant who had opened the 
door, came running out, her bonnet 
just perched on her head, its strings 
flying, and a jug and latch-key in her 
hand. As she passed Neal, the un- 
secured bonnet flew off. Neal gal- 
lantly picked it up. 

Pm sure I^m much obliged to you, 
sir,” she said, civilly. Nasty tilting 
things these new-fangled bonnets be I 

10 


161 

One doesn’t know whether to fix ’em 
a-top of the back hair or under it.” 

Can you tell me where a Miss — 

Miss It is very unfortunate,” broke 

off Neal in a tone of vexation. “ I 
am in search of a young lady on a 
little matter of business, and I have 
forgotten her number. I think she 
lives at number five, but I am not 
sure.” 

Number five’s our house,” said 
the girl, falling readily into the trap. 

There ain’t no young lady living 
there. There’s three young ladies at 
number six, sir; perhaps it’s one o’ 
them.” 

'' No young lady living at number 
five ?” repeated Neal. 

No, there isn’t. There’s only my 
missis and me and two sons and the 
gentleman wot’s ill on the first-floor. 
But perhaps you mean the sick gen- 
tleman’s sister ?” she added. She 
came to our house to-day, all the way 
from Scotland, and she’s going to 
stop with him.” 

Neal hardly thought this could ap- 
ply. The young lady did not look as 
though she had just come off a long 
journey. I don’t know,” said he. 
“ What is her name ?” 

Her name’s the same as her broth- 
er’s — Allister. If you’d been here 
two minutes sooner, sir, you might 
have seen her, for she’s just come in 
with Mr. Oswald Cray. He’s a gen- 
tleman who comes to see Mr. Allister.” 

Allister I The name was conclusive 
without other testimony. Neal had 
once heard Mr. Oswald Cray describe 
his friend Allister’s symptoms to Dr. 
Davenal. This fair girl with the 
pleasant face was Miss Allister, then ! 

*'Ah, it’s not the same,” said he, 
cautiously. I must come down by 
daylight and look out. Good-night, 
young woman ; I am sorry to have 
detained you,” he said, as he walked 
away. 

Miss Allister I” repeated Neal to 
himself. **And so the brother’s not 
dead yet ! Why, I remember Mr. 
Oswald Cray saying he could not live 
a week, and that’s three months ago.” 


162 


OSWALD CRAY. 


Frank Allister was sitting between 
the fire and the table, reading bv the 
light of the lamp, when they entered. 
He was slight and short, with a fair 
skin like his sister’s, and a long thin 
neck. The room was very small, as 
the drawing-rooms (as they are called) 
in these unpretending suburban houses 
mostly are. What with the smallness 
of the room and the heavy closeness 
of the Brompton air, Jane Allister 
had felt stifled since she arrived that 
day. Frank, without rising from his 
seat, turned round and held his thin, 
white fingers towards Oswald Cray, 
who grasped them. 

^‘Jane, where have you been ? I 
thought you only went out for a few 
minutes’ walk !” 

thought I would go as far as 
Mr. Oswald Cray’s, Frank, and thank 
him for his attention to you,” was her 
answer. He has been so kind as to 
walk back with me.” 

But how did you find your way ?” 
cried Frank, wonderingly. 

I inquired. But I suppose I was 
stupid at understanding, for I went 
out of my way. What a busy place 
London is I I would get bewildered 
if I lived in it long.” 

Oswald Cray laughed. ** It would 
be just the contrary. Miss Allister. 
The longer you lived in it the less 
bewildered you would be.” 

' ^'Ah, yes,” she answered; ‘‘use 
reconciles us to most things.” 

She had laid her bonnet and black 
shawl on a chair, and was going noise- 
lessly from one part of the room to 
another, putting in order things that 
Frank had disturbed since her depar- 
ture. He had wanted a particular 
book, and to get it had displaced two 
whole shelves of the cheffonier. The 
coal-box stood in the middle of the 
room, and a fancy china inkstand, the 
centre ornament of the cheffonier, lay 
on a chair. But the room, in its pres- 
ent general neatness and order, looked 
different from any thing Oswald had 
ever seen it. Sometimes there had 
not been, as the saying runs, a place 
to sit upon. Frank ill, and perhaps 
careless, had paid little heed to bow 


his room went, and his landlady and 
his landlady’s maid had not much be- 
stirred themselves in the matter. 
When Jane arrived, she had taken in 
all the discomfort at the first glance, 
and did not sit down until it was 
remedied. Frank’s bed-chamber was 
at the back, opening from it, and there 
was a small room, a closet in fact, at 
the bend of the stairs, which was to 
be Jane’s. 

Oswald followed her with his eyes, 
as she moved about in her simple use- 
fulness. Perhaps he wished that he 
had such a sister to make his home a 
prettier place than it was made by 
Mrs. Benn. She was very small in 
figure, and the folds of her soft black 
dress scarcely added to its fulness. 
Her light hair was carried rather low 
on the cheeks, and twisted into a coil 
on her neck behind. Without her 
out-door things she looked, if any 
thing, younger than she did with 
them. 

“And so you went to Mr. Oswald 
Cray’s, inquiring your way I” cried 
Frank. “ I say, young lady, that’s 
not the fashion of doing things in 
London.” 

“ May be not,” answered Jane. 
“I dare say I and London will not 
agree in our notions of fashion. Have 
you taken your milk, Frank ?” 

“ I should think so. It was smoked 
again.” 

“Smoked!” cried Jane, turning 
round and looking at him. 

“ It generally is smoked,” continued 
Frank. “I think their saucepans , 
down-stairs must be constructed on 
the plan of letting the smoke in.” 

Jane said no more. She inwardly 
resolved that neither Frank’s milk 
nor any thing else that he took should 
be smoked in future. 

“ Why don’t you set down, Oswald ? 
Are you afraid of J ane ?” 

“ Not very much,” Oswald answer- 
ed, looking round at her with a smile. 

“ The fact is, Frank, I have some 
work to do at home to-night, and 
must get back.” 

“ Plans to go over ?” 

“ That and other things.” 


OSWALD CRAY. 


163 


shall soon be well enou^ to 
come out again and go to work,’^ re- 
sumed Frank Allister ; and his confi- 
dent tone proved how firm was his 
belief in his own words. “Will 
Bracknel and Street take me on again 

“ I think you will soon be out if 
YOU go on improving at this rate/^ 
answered Oswald, ignoring the last 
portion of Frank’s words. “You look 
better this evening than you have 
looked yet.” 

“ Oh, I am all right. But of course 
I look better now J ane’s here. Nearly 
the first thing she did was to part and 
brush my hair, and make me put on 
a clean collar. Only fancy her coming 
upon me to-day without warning ! 
When the girl came up to say there 
was a lady at the door in a cab for 
Mr. Allister, I thought of anybody 
rather than Jane.” 

Oswald Cray wished them good- 
night, and walked leisurely home. 
He really had some work to do ; but 
he could have remained longer with 
them, only that he thought they 
might prefer to be alone on this the 
first evening of the sister’s arrival. 
They had been separated for so many 
years. 

Oswald let himself in with his latch- 
key. It must be supposed that Mrs. 
Benn heard him ; for she came run- 
ning up the kitchen stairs, and held 
out something to him under the light 
of the hall lamp. It appeared to be a 
piece of narrow black ribbon, about a 
third of a yard in length. 

“When I had got the tea-tray 
down in the kitchen, sir, I found this 
a-hanging to it. I suppose the young 
lady that was with you up-stairs left 
it here.” 

There was little doubt that Jane 
had left it. A wrist-ribbon, probably, 
inadvertently untied in pulling off her 
glove. Oswald looked at the woman 
— at her crusty face, where the pert 
curiosity induced by the visit was not 
yet subdued. A curiosity he judged 
it well to satisfy. 

“ Did you know who that young 
lady was, Mrs. Benn?” 

“ No, sir.” 


“ It was poor Mr. Allister’s sister. 
She has come all the way from Scot- 
land to nurse him.” 

The crustiness disappeared, and the 
face lighted up with a better feeling. 
Mr. Allister had been a favorite of 
Mrs. Bonn’s, and if she could be sorry 
for anybody’s illness she was sorry for 
his. 

“ Mr. Allister’s sister ! If I had 
but known it, sir ! What a pleasant- 
speaking young lady she is !” 

Following his wife, but more slowly, 
up the kitchen stairs, had cgme Benn. 
He waited until this colloquy was 
over, and then began to speak on his 
own account. 

“A gentleman is waiting for you in 
your sitting-room, sir.” 

“ Who is it ?” asked Oswald. 

“ I think he’s a stranger, sir. I 
don’t remember having seen him be- 
fore.” 

Oswald proceeded up-stairs. Stand- 
ing at the side of the room, facing the 
door as he opened it, his gloves on 
and his hat in his hand, was Neal. 
And so much like a gentleman did he 
really look, that Mr. Joseph Benn’s 
mistake was a perfectly natural one. 

“ I have taken the liberty of intrud- 
ing upon you, sir, and of asking .to 
wait until you returned, to inquire 
whether I can convey any thing for 
you to Hallingham. You had hardly 
left me, sir, in the street, when I re- 
membered how very remiss it was in 
me not to ask you. Unless I have a 
letter from the doctor to-morrow 
morning, according me a day or two’s 
grace, which I have written for, I 
shall leave to-morrow evening. If I 
can do any thing there for you, sir, or 
be of use to you in any way, you may 
command me.” 

“ Thank you, Neal ; there’s nothing 
I want done. I expect to go down 
myself next week. Come to the fire 
and warm yourself this cold night. 
Sit down.” 

Neal came forward nearer the fire ; 
but he did not avail himself of the 
invitation to sit. Oswald inquired if 
he would like some refreshment, but 
he declined. 


164 


OSWALD CRAY. 


“ Have they heard from Captain 
J)avenal yet, do you know ?” Oswald 
asked. 

‘‘ I think not, sir. I believe they 
were expecting letters from Malta 
when I left.” 

I wish he could have gone down 
for a short while. I am sure the doc- 
tor felt it.” 

“ There’s no doubt he did, sir, very 
much,” returned Neal, with warm 
sympathy in his low, respectful tone. 
‘‘ I grieve to say, sir, that the doctor 
appears .to be very much changed. 
He is m#re like one suffering from 
some painful inward illness than any 
thing else.” 

“ Of body or of mind ?” involuntarily 
asked Oswald, speaking on the mo- 
ment’s impulse. And, however he 
may have regretted the question, he 
could not recall it. 

“ I should say of mind, sir. Since 
the night of — of Lady Oswald’s death, 
he has been a changed man.” 

Mr. Oswald Cray made no answer 
whatever to the allusion ; he evidently 
declined to enter upon that unsatisfac- 
tory topic. Neal resumed. 

There are going to be changes in 
our house, sir ; it is to be conducted 
with more regard to economy. Wat- 
ton is to leave, and I am not sure but 
I am also. Miss Davenal does not 
wish any changes to be made, but the 
^doctor says it is necessary.” 

“ On the score of economy ?” 

Yes, sir, on the score of economy. 
I heard him talking of it to Miss 
Sara ; he said, if the present rate of 
expense was to go on, together with 
the heavy sum that must now go from 
him yearly as hush-money, he should 
not keep his head above water. Miss 
Davenal, who does not understand 
why any retrenchment should be made, 
opposes it entirely.” 

Every fibre in Oswald Cray’s heart 
resented the words — he could not bear 
that such should be spoken out boldly 
to him, no matter what their truth 
might be. Neal’s innocent eyes noted 
the sudden flush upon his face. 

“I think you must be mistaken, 
Neal. Hush-money 1 Dr. Davenal 


would scarcely use the term to his 
daughter.” 

“ Not that precise term, perhaps, 
sir, but certainly something equivalent 
to it. There is a rumor in the town, 
sir, that he intends to resign to the 
relatives the legacy left to him by my 
lady, or part of it.” 

Indeed !” 

People have talked a great deal, I 
fancy, sir, and it has reached the doc- 
tor’s ears. Perhaps, sir, if I may 
venture to say it to you, he may be 
afraid to keep it. The injustice of 
the bequest might lead to some in- 
vestigation which — which would be 
inconvenient to Dr. Davenal.” 

“ Neal, I’d rather not enter upon 
these topics,” said Oswald, in a clear, 
resolute tone. Things which appear 
dubious to us may be explainable by 
Dr. Davenal. At any rate, it is 
neither your business nor mine to 
question them.” 

And by those firm words Neal knew 
that Mr. Oswald Cray had, so to say, 
washed his hands of the affair and did 
not mean to take it up in any way. 
Neal’s hopes had tended to the con- 
trary, and he was a little check-mated. 

I thought I would presume to ask 
you, sir, whether you might not be 
soon requiring a personal attendant,” 
he resumed, sliding easily out of his 
disappointment, and giving no token 
of it. Should I be leaving the doc- 
tor, it would afford me greater pleas- 
ure to serve you, sir, than any one 
else, now my lady’s gone.” 

Oswald laughed — ^he could not help 
it. *^A valet for me, Neal? No, 
that would never do, under present 
circumstances. You will be at no 
loss for a good place, rely upon it, 
should you leave Dr. Davenal. The 
good places will be only too glad to 
contend for you.” 

Neal did not dispute the assertion. 
What his precise motive may have 
been for wishing to serve Mr. Oswald 
Cray, when he could no doubt dispose 
of himself so much more advantage- 
ously, was best known to himself. 
He made his adieu in his usual quiet 
and respectful fashion, and took his 


OSWALD CRAY. 


165 


# 


departure, leaving Oswald Cray to the 
reminiscences of the interview. Os- 
wald sat over the fire as oblivious of 
the work he had to do, as he had been 
of the dinner-t^ings earlier in the 
evening. Will it be believed that the 
hint dropped by Neal — that Dr. Dave- 
nal might be giving up the money 
because he dared not risk the danger 
of any investigation — was grating un- 
pleasantly on the brain of Oswald ? 
To do Neal justice so far, he himself 
fully believed that such was the motive 
of Dr. Davenal, and he had spoken for 
once with an earnest truthfulness that 
is never without its weight. 

It was unfortunate that this aspect 
of the affair should have been the first 
given to Oswald Cray. Had he simply 
heard that Dr. Daveffal was declining 
the bequest in his generous consider- 
ation for the Stephensons, it might 
perhaps have shaken his doubts on 
that other dark story, since the only 
motive the doctor could possibly have 
had throughout (as Oswald’s mind 
had argued) was the acquirement of 
the money. But if he was declining 
the money through fear, it only served 
to make these doubts the greater. It 
was most unfortunate, I say, that this 
aspect of the affair should have been 
first imparted to him ; for we all know 
how little, how very little, will serve 
to strengthen suspicions once aroused. 

He sat on with his unhappy thoughts 
far into the night, the image of Sara 
Davenal ever before him. Never had 
his love for her been more ardently 
tender, never had the cruelty of their 
obligatory separation been so keenly 
present to his soul. 


CHAPTER XXIY. 

THE LAST MEETING. 

December came in with a drizzling 
rain, which lasted a day or two. A 
cold, bleak rain, rendering out-door 
life miserable. As Sara Davenal sat 
at her chamber window, looking into 


the street, the shivering and uncom- 
fortable appearance presented by the 
few passers-by might have excited her 
compassion. 

But it did not. Truth to say, Sara 
Davenal had too much need of com- 
passion herself just now, to waste it 
upon street passengers. The greatest 
blight that can possibly fall upon the 
inward life of a woman, had fallen 
upon hers. Oswald Cray was faith- 
less. She knew not how, she knew 
not why ; she only judged by his con- 
duct that it must be so. He had been 
two or three times at Hallingliam, and 
had shunned her ; had slyinned them 
altogether. There could be no better 
proof. One of the visits he had re- 
mained three days ; therefore he had 
not want of time to plead as his ex- 
cuse. He had called at the door, in- 
quired for Miss Davenal, and upon 
Neal’s answering that Miss Davenal 
was out, he had handed in a card. 
For Sara he had not asked at all, and 
he had not been near the house since. 

Sara could do nothing. She could 
only accept this change in him and 
bear it in silence. Had she been asked 
on whose truth and honor she could 
best rely, she had answered on Os- 
wald Cray’s. Not because she loved 
him, not because it was to him her 
allegiance was certainly due, but be- 
cause she believed him to be of all 
others the very soul of chivalrous in- 
tegrity. But that he had changed to 
her there could not be a shadow of 
doubt : his conduct proved it. He 
had silently broken off all relations 
with her, and given no token of what 
his motive could be. 

That some cause,- just or unjust, had 
led to it, she yet did him the justice 
to believe : he was the last man so to 
act from caprice, or from a totally un- 
worthy motive. And she knew he 
had loved her. In vain she asked 
herself what this cause could be ; but 
there were moments when a doubt of 
whether the terrible secret, which haji 
been imparted that past night to Dr. 
Davenal, could have become known to 
Oswald Cray. If so — why, then, in 
his high honor, his sensitive pride, he 


166 


OSWALD CRAY. 


had perhaps decided that she was no 
fit wife for him. And Sara could not 
say that he had decided so unjustifiably. 
Whatever the cause, they were sepa- 
rated. 

They were separated. And the 
sunshine of her life was over. Oh, 
the bitter anguish that it cost I 
There is no pain, no anguish, that 
this world and its many troubles can 
bring, lilie unto it — finding one false 
upon whom love, in all the freshness 
of its first feeling, has been lavished. 
The bright green of lifers sweet 
springtime is gone ; the rich blue has 
faded from the sky. 

Sara said nothing, but the doctor 
spoke openly of the strange conduct 
of Mr. Oswald Cray. 

I know nothing that can have 
offended him,” he observed. “Unless 
he has chosen to take umbrage at 'the 
money’s having been left to me.” 

“ Nonsense,” said Miss Davenal ; 
“it’s not that. Mr. Oswald Cray did 
not want the money for himself; 
would not it is said, have accepted it. 
It is not that;” 

And “ It is not that,” echoed Sara 
Da venal’s heart. 

“What else is it, then ?” said the 
doctor. “Nobody in this house has 
done any thing to offend him. You 
have not, I suppose, Sara” — suddenly 
turning upon her, as a faint doubt 
flashed for the first time into bis mind. 

The question brought to her she 
knew not what of emotion. She an- 
swered with an outward appearance 
of calmness, save for the burning red 
that dyed her face. 

“ Nothing, papa. The last time I 
spoke to Mr. Oswald Cray was the 
night of the accident. We parted 
quite good friends — as we always had 
parted.” 

And the sweet words whispered by 
Oswald rose up in her memory as she 
spoke. What a contrast ! that time 
and this ! 

“Just so,” replied the doctor. 
“ There has been nothing whatever 
to cause this coolness on his part, 
except the business of the money. 
Well, as I give it back to the family, 


perhaps my gentleman will come 
round. Rely upon it, that pride of 
his has been touched in some manner 
or other.” 

But the weeks had gone on, and 
• December was in, and the gentleman 
had not “come round” yet. Sara 
Davenal sat at her bed-room window, 
all her sh.Vering misery only too pal- 
pably present to her, as she watched 
the cold rain falling in the gloomy 
twilight. 

She saw Roger bring the carriage 
round. She saw her father go out 
from the house and step into it. It 
was the open carriage, but the cover 
was up, and Roger and his master 
were sheltered |Vj>,m the rain. It w^as 
not the usual likiur for Dr. Davenal’s 
going abroad, Bfft the bad day had 
kept patients from calling on him, and 
a message had just been delivered 
saying that a lady whom he attended, 
Mrs. Scott, was worse. 

Sara heard the house clock strike 
four, and the lamps were already .,., 
lighted in the streets. Night was com- 
ing on earlier than usual. The gleam- 
ing of the pools of water in the rays 
of the gas-lamps did not tend to add 
to the cheerfulness of the scene, and 
Sara, with a shiver that she could not 
suppress, quitted her room and went 
down-stairs. 

The blaze and warmth of the dining- 
room were welcome. She went in, 
and knelt down before the fire on the 
hearth-rug, and laid her aching head 
for shelter against the side of the 
marble mantel-piece, and stayed there 
until disturbed by the entrance of Miss 
Davenal. 

“ Neal’s come home,” announced 
Miss Davenal. 

“ Is he ?” apathetically answered 
Sara. 

“ I saw him go by with his port- 
manteau. What are you down there 
for, Sara, roasting your face ? Have 
you no regard for your complexion ?” 

“ I am not roasting it, aunt. My 
face is quite in the shade.” 

“ But you are roasting it. What’s 
the use of telling me that ? Had I 
allowed the fire to burn my face at 


OSWALD CRAY. 


167 


your age, do you suppose I should 
have retained any delicacy of skin ? 
Get up from the fire.’’ 

Sara rose wearily. She sat down 
in a chair opposite to the one her 
aunt had taken, and let her hands fall 
listlessly in her lap. 

^‘Have any patients been here this 
afternoon ?” 

I think not. Aunt Bettina. I sup- 
pose it was too wet for them to come 
out.” 

Have you been drawing ?” 

‘‘Hot this gloomy day. I like a 
good light for it.” 

“ It strikes me you have become 
very idle lately. Miss Sara Davenal ! 
Do you think tha^ftn^ was bestowed 
upon us to be wasrdl#’ 

A faint blush rose to Sara’s cheek. 
In these, the early days of her bitter 
sorrow, she feared she had been idle. 
What with the shock brought upon 
her by that ominous secret, and the 
cruel pain caused by the falsity of Os- 
wald Cray, her tribulation had been 
well-nigh greater than she could bear. 

“ Ring the bell,” said Miss Davenal. 

Sara rose from her chair and rang 
it. It was answered by Jessy. 

“ Is not Heal come home ?” 

“ Yes, ma’am. He has just come 
in.” 

“ Tell him I shall be glad to see 
him.” 

Heal appeared in answer to the 
summons. He had just returned from 
that London journey, which had been 
prolonged by the permission of the 
doctor. In he came, just the same as 
usual, his white necktie spotless, his 
black clothes without a crease. 

“ So you are back, Heal,” said Miss 
Davenal. “ I am very glad to see 
you. And pray have you arranged 
all your business satisfactorily ? — 
secured your share of the moneys ?” 

“Entirely so, thank you, ma’am,” 
replied Heal, advancing nearer to his 
mistress that he might be heard. “ I 
am pleased to find all well at home, 
ma’am.” 

“ You have been away longer than 
you intended to be, Heal.” 

“Yes, ma’am. I wrote to my 


master stating why it was necessary 
that I should, if possible, prolong my 
stay, and he kindly permitted it. I 
saw Mr. Oswald Cray, ma’am, while 
I was in London,” Heal added, as a 
gratuitous piece of information. 

“ You' did what ?” asked Miss Dav- 
enal, while Sara turned and stood 
with her back to them, looking at the 
fire. 

“I saw Mr. Oswald Cray, ma’am.” 

“ Oh, indeed. And where did you 
see him ?” 

“ I met him one night in London, 
ma’am. He was walking with a young 
lady.” 

“ Saw him walking with a young 
lady ?” repeated Miss Bettina, in rather 
a snappish tone — for as a general rule 
she did not approve of young ladies 
and gentlemen walking together. 

She seemed a very nice young 
lady, ma’am, young and pretty,” con- 
tinued Heal, who was getting a little 
exasperated at the face of Miss Sara 
Davenal being hidden from his view. 
“ I believe it was Miss Allister, the 
sister of a gentleman with whom Mr. 
Oswald Cray is very intimate.” 

“ Well, I am glad you are back, 
Heal,” concluded Miss Davenal. 
“ Things have been all at sixes and 
sevens without you.” 

Heal retired. And Sara, bending 
before the fire, repeated the words over 
and over again to her beating heart. 
A lady young and pretty, walking with 
him in the evening hours, the sister 
of the friend with whom he was so in- 
timate ! She laid her hand upon her 
bosom, if that might still the tumult 
within, in all the sickness of incipient 
jealousy. Until that moment Sara 
Davenal had never known how she 
had clung to hope in her heart of 
hearts. While saying to herself, he is 
lost to me forever, this under-current 
of hope had been ever ready to breathe 
a whisper that the cloud might some 
time be cleared up, and he return. 
How the scales were rudely torn from 
her eyes, and reason suggested that 
his slighting treatment of her might 
proceed from a different cause than 
any she had ever glanced at 


168 


OSWALD CRAY. 


What was it Neal said, Sara ? 
That the pretty lady walking with Os- 
wald Cray was somebody’s sister 

Sara turned in her pain to answer 
her aunt. '‘Mr. Allister’s sister, he 
said.” 

“ Who’s Mr. Allister ?” 

“ A gentleman who used to be at 
Bracknell and Street’s. I remember, 
that night of the railway accident, Mr. 
Oswald Cray was obliged to return to 
town because he had promised to 

spend to spend the Sunday with 

him.” 

An idea darting into her brain had 
caused her to hesitate. Had Oswald 
Cray’s anxiety to return to town been 
prompted by the wish to be with the 
sister, as well as the brother ? Sara 
felt her brow turn moist and cold. 

“ Young and pretty I” repeated Miss 
Davenal. “ Who knows but they may 
be engaged ? Ah I it’s Caroline who 
should have had Oswald Cray.” 

Meanwhile Hr. Havenal had been 
driven to the house of Mrs. Scott. It 
was not very far from his own home, 
about two streets only. Time had 
been, and not so far back, when Hr. 
Havenal would not have thought of 
ordering his carriage for s.o short a 
distance, would have braved the in- 
clemencies of the weather, the drifting 
rain, the cutting wind, and walked it. 
But the doctor had been growing ill 
both in body and mind ; since the night 
of that fatal revelation he seemed to 
have become in feelings like an old 
man, needing every care and help. 
As he had looked from his windows 
that afternoon, a sort of shudder at the 
out-door weather seemed to come over 
him — a feeling as if he could not and 
ought not to venture out in it. And 
he told Roger to bring round the car- 
riage. 

He stepped out of the carriage and 
entered Mrs. Scott’s, leaving Roger 
snugly ensconced under the shelter of 
the cover. But when the doctor 
reached his patient’s bed, he found her 
so considerably and alarmingly worse 
that he could not think of leaving her. 
She was a great and real sufferer ; 
not, as poor Lady Oswald had been, 


an imaginary one ; and in the last 
week or two her symptoms had as- 
sumed a dangerous character. The 
doctor thought of Roger ai^ his 
horses, and went down. 

“ I shall not be ready to come home 
this hour, Roger. Better go back and 
put the horses up. You can come for 
me at five.” 

So Roger, nothing loth, turned his 
horses round and drove home. And 
Hr. Havenal, with another shudder, 
and a very perceptible one, hastened 
in-doors from the beating rain. 

“ What’s the matter with me this 
afternoon ?” he asked, quite angry at 
any such sort ^^^nsation intruding 
upon him. 

Is the body ^Wmes more sensitive 
to outward influences than it is at 
others, rendering it susceptible to take 
any ill that may be abroad ? Is it 
more liable to cold, to '•fever, to other 
ailments ? Or can it be that the mind 
has so great an influence over the body 
that the very fact of dreading these 
ills predisposes us to take them ? If 
ever Hr. Havenal sensibly shrunk from 
an encounter with the out-door weath- 
er, it was on that afternoon. He 
could not remember so to have shrunk 
from it in all his life. 

Mrs. Scott’s room was hot. The 
fire was large, every breath of air was 
excluded, and two large gas-burners 
flamed away, adding to the heat. As 
Hr. Havenal sat there he became first 
at ease in the genial warmth, then 
hot, and subsequently as moist as 
though he were breathing the atmos- 
phere of a baker’s oven. He had had 
many a battle with this same Mrs. 
Scott over the heated rooms she loved 
to indulge in, but he had not con- 
quered yet. 

It was not much above half-past 
four when the doctor was beckoned 
out of the room. He was wanted 
down-stairs. There stood Julius 
Wild ; a‘'nd Mr. Julius Wild was in as 
great a heat with running, as Hr. 
Havenal was with the pernicious at- 
mosphere above. 

“I have been about everywhere, 
sir, trying to find you,” he began, out 


OSWALD CRAY. 


169 


of breath. “ At last I bethought my- 
self of asking your coachman at the 
stables if he knew, and he said you 
were at Mrs. Scott’s. You are wanted 
in the accident-ward, sir, as quick as 
you can get there.” 

What has come in ?” inquired Dr. 
Davenal. 

A young man has fallen from the 
very top of that scaffolding in High 
Street, sir. It is a dreadful case, and 
the house surgeon does not think he 
can be saved, even with the operation. 
The top of his head is crushed in. 
Mr. Berry and Dr. Ford and some 
more are there, but they wish for 
you.” 

Dr. Davenal didTijjpfc delay a mo- 
ment. In a case of Vem necessity he 
threw aside all thought of precaution 
for himself. If human skill could 
save the life of this poor young man, 
he knew that his could, and he knew 
that perhaps he was the only hand in 
Hallingham which could successfully 
carry through the critical and delicate 
operation he suspected must be per- 
formed. 

He had no great coat with him, and 
he started off at once with Julius Wild, 
heated as he was. The rain beat 
against him in a torrent. The wind 
blew so hard that an umbrella was 
useless ; one which the doctor had 
taken from the hall of Mrs. Scott’s 
house was turned inside-out ere he had 
taken many steps. 

A rough night, sir,” remarked the 
young embryo surgeon, as he kept by 
his side. 

It is that,” said Dr. Davenal. 

Away they splashed through the 
muddy pools in the streets. It was 
quite dark now in the unusually 
gloomy evening, and the gas lamps 
only served to mislead their eyesight 
in the haste they had to make. There 
could be no waiting to pick their way. 
The Infirmary was at a considerable 
distance from Mrs. Scott’s, and ere 
they reached it the cold had fastened 
on one of them. That one was not 
Julius Wild. 

When they came in view of the In- 
firmary, Julius Wild ran forward to 


give notice that the doctor was ap- 
proaching. Two or three of the med- 
ical men came into the great hall to 
meet him ; Mark Cray was one of 
them. The news of the accident had 
spread through the town, and the sur- 
geons attached to the Infirmary were 
collecting there. 

We began to despair of you,” 
cried Dr. Ford, ‘‘and there’s no time 
to be lost. I was just recommending 
Mr. Cray as the one to officiate.” 

Dr. Davenal turned his eye with an 
eagle glance on Mark Cray, ere the 
words had well left Dr. Ford’s lips. 
Had Mark actually acceded to the 
recommendation, the look could 
scarcely have been sterner. Mark 
colored under it, and his thoughts went 
back to Lady Oswald. Never in Dr. 
Davenal’s presence must he attempt 
to try his skill again. 

“ It is all right now that I am here,” 
quietly observed Dr. Davenal to the 
surgeons. “ I came the minute I 
knew of it from Mr. Wild.” 

But the night’s work told on Dr. 
Davenal. The soaking rain, the chil- 
ling wind, had struck inwards the per- 
spiration which Mrs. Scott’s heated 
room had induced. On the next day 
he was visibly ilh 

“Don’t go out to-day, papa,” im- 
plored Sara, who detected his suffer- 
ing, and whose instinct, more than 
any thing else, told her the time was 
come when he required care and ad- 
vice himself, instead of going abroad 
to impart it to others. 

“ Not go out, child ? I must go 
out.” 

“ But you are not in a fit state for 
it. I am sure you are very ill.” 

“ I caught cold last night ; that’s 
what it is. It will go off in a day or 
two.” 

“Yes, if you will lie by and nurse 
yourself. Not if you go out to make 
it worse.” 

“ I have never lain by in all my life, 
Sara. A doctor has no time for lying 
by. What would become of my pa- 
tients ?” 

He went out to his carriage, which 
waited. The close carriage ; bright 


170 


OSWALD CRAY. 


as the daj was — for the weather had 
changed — it was the close carriage 
that had been ordered round by the 
doctor. 

“ Master’s getting ill, I know,” was 
the comment of Roger, when he found 
it was only to pay the daily round of 
near visits. 

At the very moment that he quitted 
the gate, who should go by but Mr. 
Oswald Cray. And Mr. Oswald Cray 
quite started when he saw Dr. Dave- 
nal. 

I'^’ever in the short space of a 
month — and it was little more than 
that since they met — had Oswald Cray 
witnessed in any one so great a change. 
That Dr. Davenal had much altered in 
the time, the least attentive observer 
could perceive ; but on this morning 
he was looking unusually ill, from the 
effects of the cold caught two evenings 
before. It was impossible for either 
of them to pass the other, had they so 
wished it, without being guilty of ab- 
solute rudeness : and they stopped 
simultaneously. 

'‘You are ill, Dr. Davenal,” ex- 
claimed Oswald, speaking impulsively. 

“ Middling. I have got a cold hang- 
ing about me. We have had some 
bad weather here.” 

It cannot be denied that Dr. Dave- 
naPs tone and manner betrayed a cold- 
ness never yet shown to Oswald Cray. 
Generous man though he was by na- 
ture, less prone to take offence than 
most people, he did think that Oswald 
Cray’s slighting conduct had been un- 
justifiable, and he could not help show- 
ing his sense of it. 

They stood a moment in silence, 
Oswald marking the ravages illness or 
something else had made on the doc- 
tor’s face and form, llis figure was 
drooping now, his face was careworn ; 
but the illness seemed to be of mind 
more than body. U nfortunately those 
miserable suspicions, instilled into Os- 
wald Cray’s brain, arose now with re- 
doubled force, and a question sug- 
gested itself — could any thing save 
remorse change a man as he had 
changed, in such a short space of time ? 

“You are a stranger now, Mr. Os- 


wald Cray. What has kept you from 
us ?” 

“ The last time I called you were all 
out,” Oswald answered somewhat 
evasively. 

“ And you could not call again ! 
As you please, of course,” continued 
the doctor as Oswald’s face took a 
somewhat repellant turn, and the Os- 
wald pride became rather too conspic- 
uous. “I had wished to say a word 
or two to you with regard to the will 
made by Lady Oswald ; but perhaps 
you do not care to hear it.” 

“Anything that you, or I, or any 
one else can say will not alter the will, 
Dr. Davenal. And it does not in the 
least concern |i|S 

“ But I thiiilBpu are resenting it in 
your heart, for all that.” 

Ah, what cross-purposes they were 
at ! Oswald had not resented that ; 
and all his fiery pride rose up to boil- 
ing heat at being accused of it. He 
had deemed that, to make Dr. Dave- 
nal the inheritor, was unjust to the 
nephews of Latly Oswald, and he had 
felt for them ; but he had not resented 
it, even at heart. lie spoke the literal 
truth when he said it was a matter 
that did not (concern him. If the 
heavy cloud of misa-pprehension be- 
tween them could but have cleared 
itself away ! 

“ Will you be kind enough to un- 
derstand me once for all. Dr. Dave- 
nal ?” he haughtily said. “ Lady 
Oswald’s money, either before her 
death or after it, never was, nor could 
be, any concern of mine. I do not 
claim a right to give so much as an 
opinion upon her acts in regard to it ; 
in fact I have no such right. Hatl 
she chosen to fling the money into 
the sea, and benefited nobody, she 
might have done so, for any wish of 
mine upon the point. I did feel a 
passing sorrow for the Stephensons 
when I saw their disappointment, but 
I did not permit myself to judge so 
far as to say Lady Oswald had done 
wrong. It was no affair of mine,” he 
emphatically added ; “ and I did not 
make it one.” 

But, in spite of his impressive de- 


OSWALD CRAY. 


nial, Dr. Davenal did not believe him. 
Whence, else, the haughty resentment 
that shone forth from every line of 
his features ? Whence, else, his past 
absence from the house, his altogether 
slighting conduct ? Dr. Davenal made 
one more effort at concession, at sub- 
duing his unfounded prejudices. ' 

I can assure you I resented the 
will — if I may so say it. I resented 
it for the Stephensons’ sake, and felt 
myself a pitiful usurper. Nothing 
would have induced me to accept that 
money, Mr. Oswald Cray ; and steps 
are being taken to refund it, every 
shilling, to the Stephensons.” 

^‘Ah,” remarked Oswald, I heard 
something of that. it been willed 

to me I should havdipCne the same.” 

He held himself rigidly erect as he 
said it. There was no unbending of 
the hard brow, there was no faint 
smile to break the haughty curve of 
the lip. That poisonous hint dropped 
by Neal — that the money was about 
to be restored through fear — was un- 
comfortably present to Oswald then. 
Dr. Davenal saw that the resentment, 
whatever its cause, was immovable, 
and he stepped into his carriage with- 
out shaking hands. 

‘^Good-morning to you, Mr. Os- 
wald Cray.” 

And then the reaction set in, in 
Oswald Cray’s mind, and he began to 
blush for his discourtesy. The care- 
worn face, the feeble form, haunted 
him throughout the day, and he began 
to ask himself, what if all his premises 
were wrong — if appearances and 
Neal’s tale had been deceitful — if he 
had done the doctor grievous ill in his 
heart? It was but the reaction, I 
say, the repentance arising from his 
own haughty discourtesy, which he 
felt had been more offensively palpa- 
ble than it need have been ; but it 
clung to him for hours, haunting him 
in all the business that he had to 
transact. 

It was somewhat strange, that just 
when this new feeling was upon him 
he should encounter Sara Davenal. 
They met in a lonely place — the once- 


171 

famed grave-yard at the back of the 
abbey. 

His business for the day over, Os- 
wald Cray was going to pay a visit 
to Mark and his wife. He was nearer 
the back of the abbey than the front, and 
ignoring ceremony, intended to enter 
by the small grated door, a relic of 
the old abbey, which divided the 
grave-yard from one of the long ab- 
bey passages. In passing that tomb- 
stone, already mentioned, Oswald 
turned his eyes down upon it : in the 
bright moonlight — for never had the 
moon been brighter — he could almost 
trace the letters : the next moment a 
noise in front attracted his attention — 
the closing of the grated door. There 
stood Sara Davenal. She had stayed 
with Mrs. Cray later than she in- 
tended, and was hastening home to 
dinner : in leaving the abbey by this 
back entrance, a few minutes of the 
road were saved. 

They met face to face. Sara’s 
heart stood still, and her countenance 
changed from white to red with emo- 
tion. And Oswald ? — all the love 
that Oswald had been endeavoring to 
suppress returned in its deepest 
force. 

Ah, it is of no use ! Try as wo 
may, we cannot evade the laws of 
nature ; we cannot bend them to our 
own will. In spite of the previous 
resolutions of weeks to forget her. 
Oswald Cray stood there knowing 
that he loved her above 'every thing 
on earth. 

“ How are you, Sara ?” 

He put out his hand to her in all 
calm self-possession ; he spoke the 
salutation with quiet equanimity ; but 
as Sara looked in his face, she knew 
that his agitation was not in reality 
less than hers. She said a few con- 
fused words in explanation of her be- 
ing there at that hour and alone. On 
calling that afternoon, she had found 
Caroline not well, and had stayetl 
with her to the last moment, as Mark 
was in the country. 

Then for a whole minute there wnis 
a silence. Perhaps neither could 


172 


OSWALD CRAY. 


speak. Sara put an end to it by 
making towards the gate. 

You Avill let me see you home, as 
you are alone 

No, thank you,” she answered. 
“ There is nothing to hurt me. It is 
as light as day.” 

He did not press it. He seemed 
half paralyzed with indecision. Sara 
wished him good-night, and he re- 
sponded to it, and once more shook 
hands, all mechanically. 

But ere she was through the gate, 
she turned to speak. One moment 
longer, and he had arrested her pro- 
gress. 

'' There are two or three books at 
our house belonging to you,” she said. 
'' What is to be done with them ? 
Shall they be sent to the Apple Tree ?” 

He caught her hands ; he drew her 
from the gate into the bright moon- 
light. He could not let her go with- 
out a word of explanation ; the cru- 
elty of visiting upon her her father’s 
sin was very present to him then. 

“ Are we to part thus forever, 
Sara ?” 

Surely that question was cruel ! It 
was not she who had instituted the 
parting ; it was himself. She did not 
so much as know its cause. 

May we not meet once in a way, 
as friends */” he continued. I dare 
not ask for more now.” 

That he loved her still was all too 
evident. And Sara took courage to 
gasp forth a question. In these mo- 
ments of agitation the cold conven- 
tionalities of the world are sometimes 
set aside. 

What has been the matter ? How 
have we offended you ?” 

You have not offended me,” he 
ajiswered, his agitation almost irre- 
pressible. I love you more than I 
ever did ; this one moment of meet- 
ing has proved it to me. I could lay 
down my life for you, Sara; I could 
sacrifice all, save honor, for you. 
And you ? You have not changed ? 
you love me still ?” 

Yes,” she gasped, unable to deny 
the truth, too miserable to care to 
suppress it. 


And yet we must part ! we must 
go forth on our separate paths, striv- 
ing to forget. But when our lives 
shall end, Sara, we shall neither of us 
have loved another as we love now.” 

Her very heart seemed to shiver ; 
the fiat was all too plainly expressed. 
But she stood there quietly, waiting 
for more, her hand in his. 

“ I would have forfeited half my 
future life, I would have given all its 
benefits, to be able to call you mine. 
The blow upon me has been very 
bitter. ” 

What blow ?” she murmured. ^ 

I cannot tell it you,” he cried, 
after a struggle. Not to you can I 
speak of it.” ^ . 

But you m'ifel,” she rejoined, the 
words breaking from her in her agony. 
^^You have said too much, or too 
little.” 

‘^I have — Heaven help me ! Can 
you not guess what it is that has 
caused this ?” 

N — 0,” she faltered. But even 
as the word left her lips there rose up 
before her the secret of that dreadful 
night — with the suspicion that Oswald 
had in some unaccountable manner 
become cognizant of it. 

“ I loved you as I believe man 
never yet loved, Sara; I looked for- 
ward to years of happiness with you ; 

I expected you to be my wife. And 
— and — I cannot go on !” he broke 
off. ^^I cannot speak of this to you.” 

The tears were rolling down her 
pale face. You must not leave me 
in suspense, Oswald. It may be bet- 
ter for us both that you should speak 
out freely.” 

Yes, it might be better for them 
both ; at any rate, he felt that no 
choice was left to him now. He 
drew nearer to her and lowered his 
voice to a whisper. 

Is there no — Heaven pardon me 
for speaking the word to you, Sara ! — 
disgraceful secret attaching now to — 
to your family ? One which would 
render it impossible for a man of 
honor to ” 

He would not say more : he had 
said enough ; and he felt the words to 


OSWALD CRAY. 


173 


his heart’s core. Whatever pain they 
may have brought to her, they in- 
flicted tenfold more upon him. With 
a low cry, she flung her hands before 
her face. 

'' Is it so, Sara 

It is. How did you hear of it 
The whisper came to me. Some 
people might — might — call it mur- 
der.” 

'' No, no I” she broke forth in her 
pain. “ It surely was not so bad as 
that. They kept the details from me, 
Oswald ; but it could not have been 
so bad as that.” 

The words fell on his heart like an 
ice-bolt. Unconsciously to himself 
he had been hoping^'that she might 
disprove the tale. For that purpose 
he had whispered to her of the worst : 
but it seemed that she could not deny 
it. It was quite enough, and he 
quitted the subject abruptly. 

‘‘ God bless you, my darling, for- 
ever and forever,” he said, taking her 
hands in his. I do not respect or 
love you less ; but I cannot — I can- 
not — you know what I would say. 
It is a cruel fate upon me, as upon 
you ; and for the present, for both our 
sakes, it may be better that our paths 
in life should lie apart. After a while 
we may meet again, as friends, and 
continue to be such throughout life.” 

The tears had dried on her face, as 
it was lifted in the moonlight, its ex- 
pression one living agony. But there 
was no resentment in it ; on the con- 
trary, she fully justified him. Her 
hands lingered in his with a farewell 
pressure, and she strove to re-echo 
the blessing he had given. 

And then they parted, each going a 
different way. Oswald Cray, in no 
mood for the abbey now, struck off 
towards the Apple Tree ; Sara, draw- 
ing her veil over her face, went on to 
her home. 

And so the dream was over. The 
dream which she had long been un- 
consciously cherishing, of what a 
meeting between them might bring 
about, was over; and Sara Davenal 
had been rudely awakened to stern 
reality. 


CHAPTER XXY. 

A SPECIAL FAVOR FOR NEAL. 

Miss Bettina Davenal stood before 
her toilette-glass, dressing herself in 
dudgeon. Let who would be neg- 
lected in the house. Miss Bettina must 
not be ; and yet she had been, as she 
was saying to herself, shamefully neg- 
lected that morning. When fully at- 
tired, she rang her bell — a sharp long 
peal — an ominous peal to Jessy the 
housemaid’s ear, as she bounded up ^ 
to answer it. Miss Davenal did not 
at first speak, but confronted the girl 
with her stern eye. 

Did you ring, ma’am ?” asked 
Jessy, at a loss what else to say. 

Where’s my milk ?” 

Milk 1” replied Jessy, in wonder. 

The milk that was ordered for me 
last night. Don’t you hear how hoarse 
I am ?” 

^‘I did not know that milk was 
ordered,” said Jessy. 

'' It is no excuse,” retorted her mis- 
tress. Miss Sara ordered it. Jessy, 
my girl, if this is the way you attend 
to your duties, we shall have to part.” 

''Indeed, ma’am,” persisted Jessy, 

" I heard nothing whatever about it. 

I’ll ask Watton.” 

The girl shut the door, and ran 
down-stairs to make the inquiry. Miss 
Bettina, painfully erect, began to fold 
a warm shawl to throw on her shoul- 
ders before going down to the break- 
fast-room. The grievance was this : 
Miss Bettina had been attacked with 
cold and hoarseness the previous even- 
ing and had gone to bed early, desiring 
Sara to order her usual remedy for a 
cold in the chest to be taken to her 
room at seven o’clock the following 
morning. 

It was an old-fashioned remedy, and 
certainly a curious one ; but it had 
been given to Miss Bettina in her 
youth by an old-fashioned nurse, and 
she believed in it still. Half a pint 
of milk, with some suet chopped fino 
and boiled in it : such was the prep- 
aration ; and it had failed to make its 
appearance. 


174 


OSWALD C R'A Y. 


Most ladies would have rung for it. 
Not so Miss Da venal. She preferred 
to go without it that she might visit 
her displeasure on the delinquent. 
She got up and dressed herself, for 
she never allowed trifling ailments to 
interfere with the accustomed routine 
of her life. Were it at all possible to 
appear at the breakfast-table, it would 
have been unpardonable in Miss Bet- 
tina’s eyes not to have done so. Idle- 
ness and late rising were in her creed 
little less than crimes. 

She had just finished wrapping the 
shawl round her, when Jessy returned. 

The order was not given at all, 
ma’am, I find. Miss Sara must have 
forgotten it.” 

“ What do you say ?” asked her mis- 
tress, pulling away the shawl from 
her head and bending her ear to Jessy. 

'' Miss Sara must have forgotten it, 
ma’am. We none. of us heard any 
thing about it.” 

Miss Bettina stared at the girl for 
a good minute, and then stalked along 
the corridor to her niece’s door. Sara, 
not quite dressed yet, opened it. 

“ And my milk ?” cried Miss Bet- 
tina. 

Her aunt’s order of the previous 
evening flashed over Sara’s memory. 

Oh, aunt, I am so sorry I” she ex- 
claimed, her tone betraying her ear- 
nestness. “ I forgot it ; I did in- 
deed I” 

“ Forgot it !” repeated Miss Dave- 
nal. What business had you to 
forget it? I can. scarcely speak, my 
chest is so sore.” 

“It is not too late now, aunt. 
Jessy ” 

“ Not too late ! — when I am going 
down to breakfast. There’s the clock 
— eight ! And pray what makes you 
so late this morning ?” 

“ I shall not be long, aunt,” was 
Sara’s weary answer ; and Miss Bet- 
tina turned away, and Sara closed 
the door. 

Ah, poor thing ! she had far more 
need of a healing remedy than Miss 
Bettina, though perhaps not of that 
special one, milk and suet. Who 
shall minister to a mind diseased ? 


The whole night— for it was the 
morning subsequent to that meeting 
in the abbey grave-yard with Oswald 
Cray — had Sara lain awake, striving 
to battle with her pain. It was very 
sore to bear. She knew now the 
cause of his absenting himself ; and 
she knew that they were lost to each 
other forever. It is the worst pain 
that a woman can be called upon to 
endure : no subsequent tribulation in 
life can equal its keen anguish. 

Ten times in the night had she 
prayed for help — for strength to sup- 
port and live through her mind’s 
trouble. She did not pray that it 
might be taken from her ; that was 
hopeless : she knew that weeks and 
months must elapse before even the 
first brunt would lose its force ; that 
years must roll on before tranquillity 
could come. 

She did not blame Oswald Cray. 
She believed that that unhappy secret, 
of the precise nature of which she 
was yet in ignorance, had become 
known to him ; how, she could not 
conjecture. Perhaps he knew it in 
all its terrible details — and that these 
were terrible, she doubted less now 
than ever. Were they not — ay, she 
fully believed it ! — shortening her 
father’s life ? There were moments 
when even that awful word spoken 
by Oswald Cray had suggested itself 
to her own mind Avith sickening dread 
— but she could not believe it to be so 
bad as that. But she did believe that 
it was something to bring disgrac^ 
and danger in its train ; and she ful 
justified Oswald Cray in the step he 
had taken. Still she thought that he 
should have come to her in the first 
onset, and plainly said, such and suck 
a thing has come to my knowledge, 
and therefore we must part. He had 
not done this : he had left her for 
weeks to the slow torture of suspense 
—and yet that very suspense was 
more tolerable than the certainty now 
arrived at. Oh, the dull, dead pain 
that lay on her heart ! — never for a 
long, long while to be lifted from it. 

She strove to reason calmly with 
herself; she essayed to mark out 


OSWALD CEAY. 


175 


Tvhat her future course should be. 
Of course she knew that there was 
nothing at present but to bear her 
burden and hide it from the world’s 
eye ; but she would do her duty all 
the same, heaven helping her, in all 
the relations of life ; she would strive 
nobly to take her full part in life’s 
battle, whatever the inward struggle. 

There is no doubt that in that night 
of tribulation she looked at the future 
in its very darkest aspect. It was 
well perhaps that it should be so, for 
the horizon might clear a little as she 
went on. That Mr. Oswald Cray 
would in time marry, she had no 
right to doubt — a word or two of his 
had almost seemed to hint at it : man 
forgets more easily than woman. 

Towards morning she dropped into 
a heavy sleep, and had slept longer 
than usual. This had caused her to 
be late in dressing, and brought upon 
her the reproof of punctual Miss Bet- 
tina. She looked at herself in the 
glass ere she went down ; at her pale 
face, her heavy eyelids; hoping, 
trusting they would escape observa- 
tion. What a happy thing it is, that 
others cannot read our faces as we 
read them ! 

Miss Bettina was at the head of the 
breakfast-table — cold or no cold, ill or 
well, she was at her post; and Dr. 
Davenal stood at the fire, his elbow 
on the mantel-piece, his forehead 
loaning on his hand. 

Sara went up to him, and he seemed 
to rouse himself from a reverie as he 
kissed her. She noticed how ill he 
looked. 

Papa, I am sure you are worse !” 

“ I. don’t feel very well, child.” 

If you would but stay at home 
for a day or two and nurse yourself I” 

“Ah I I have not time. There’s a 
great deal of sickness about, and my 
patients must not be neglected.” 

“ Mark Cray can attend to them.” 

“ To the light cases he could. Not 
the serious ones ; I wouldn’t trust 
them to him.” 

“Not trust them to him?” echoed 
Sara 

The surprised tone of the question 


aroused Dr. Davenal : he had spoken 
out too heedlessly his real thoughts. 
“ People dangerously ill have natu- 
rally more confidence in me than in a 
young man,” he said, by way of 
doing away with the impression his 
avowal might make. 

“ I did not know before t^t you 
preferred cold coffee,” severely inter- 
rupted Miss Davenal, whose anger at 
the neglect of the breakfast-table by 
the doctor, and at Sara’s tardy ap- 
pearance, had been gradually deepen- 
ing. “It has been poured out these 
ten minutes.” 

They took their places in obedience 
to the summons. Neither able to eat : 
the doctor from sickness of body, for 
he was really ill ; Sara from sickness 
of mind. 

“Aunt Bettina, I tell papa he ought 
not to go out to-day.” 

“ Not going out to-day ?” repeated 
Miss Bettina. “ Why not ? What’s 
he going to do, then ?” 

“ I say he ought not to go out. He 
is not well enough.” 

Miss Bettina heard this time. She 
raised her eyes and gazed at the doc- 
tor. It was impossible not to see that 
he did look ill. 

“ What’s the matter with you, Dieh- 
ard ?” 

“ It’s only my cold,” said the doc- 
tor. “ It has settled here,” touching 
his chest. 

“ That’s just where mine is settling, 
thanks to Miss Sara,” grimly returned 
Aunt Bettina. “ If I had had that 
milk this morning, I should have been 
almost well again.” 

“ I am very sorry, aunt,” murmured 
Sara for the second time. And she 
did feel sorry. In her inward tribu- 
lation she had forgotten all about the 
milk as soon as her aunt had spoken 
of it. 

“ Papa’s eating nothing,” said Sara. 

•‘^As if I could eat, with the skin 
off my throat and chest!” retorted 
Miss Bettina, mistaking the words, as 
usual. “ It seems that nobody’s eat- 
ing this morning; you are not; we 
might as well not have had the break- 
fast laid. Toast was made to be eaten, 


176 


OSWALD CRAY. 


Miss Sara Davenal, not to be waste- 
fully crumbled into bits on the plate. 
I suppose you have not got a cold 

Sara began to pick up the crumbs 
and the pieces, and to swallow them 
as she best could. Any thing to es- 
cape particular observation. 

wonder how Mrs. Cray is this 
morning she presently observed, 
having ransacked her brains for a sub- 
ject to speak upon. Miss Bettina 
heard all awry. 

Oswald Cray ? Why should you 
wonder how he is ? Is he ill 

I said Mrs. Cray, aunt;’^ and she 
would have given much to hide the 
sharp bright flush that the other name 
brought to her face. I told you last 
evening Caroline was not well. I 
think you always mistake what I 
say.” 

No, I don’t mistake. But you 
have got into a habit of speaking 
most indistinctly. My belief is you 
did say Oswald Cray. He is in 
town,” fiercely added Miss Bettina, 
as if the fact strengthened her propo- 
sition. 

‘^Yes, he is in town,” assented 
Sara, for her aunt was staring so very 
fixedly at her that she felt herself 
obliged to say something. At least 
he was in town yesterday.” 

‘‘Where did you see him, Sara?” 
asked the doctor. 

“ I met him as I was leaving the 
abbey last evening, papa,” she re- 
plied, not daring to look up as she 
said it. 

“ I met him yesterday, also,” ob- 
served Dr. Davenal. “ He was pass- 
ing the gate here just as I was about 
to step into the carriage. He is a 
puzzle to me.” 

Miss Bettina bent her ear. “ What’s 
a puzzle to you, doctor ?” 

“ Oswald Cray is. I had the very 
highest opinion of that man. I could 
have answered for his being the soul 
of honor, one entirely above the petty 
prejudices of the world in ordinary. 
But he has lost caste in my eyes : has 
gone down nearly cent, per cent.” 

“ It’s his pride that’s in fault,” cried 
Miss Bettina. “He is the proudest 


man living, old Sir Philip of Thorn- 
dyke excepted.” 

“ What has his pride to do with it ?” 
returned the doctor. “ I should say, 
rather, his selfishness. He has chosen 
to take umbrage at Lady Oswald’s 
having left her money to me ; and 
very foolish it was of her, poor thing, 
to do it ! But why he should visit his 
displeasure ” 

“ He has not taken umbrage at that, 
papa,” interrupted Sara. 

“Yes, he has,” said Dr. Davenal. 
“ I spoke to him yesterday of the will, 
and he declined in the most abrupt 
manner to hear any thing of the mat- 
ter. His tone in its haughty coldness 
was half insulting. Why he should 
have taken it up so cavalierly, I can- 
not conceive.” 

Sara remained silent. She did not 
again dare to dissent, lest Dr. Dave- 
nal should question her more closely. 
Better let it rest at that : far better let 
it be thought that Mr. Oswald Cray 
had taken umbrage at the disposal of 
the property, than that the real truth 
should be known. 

But for cross-purposes, how well 
we might all get on I Oswald Cray 
believed all sorts of ill of Dr. Davenal, 
and this accounted for his repellant 
manner at their meeting. Sara had 
no suspicion that it was against her 
father his ire was excited. She be- 
lieved Oswald’s only motive in stop- 
ping away from the house was that 
he might separate himself from her. 
As to the will and the disposal of the 
money, she did not for a moment think 
that had any thing to do with the 
matter ; and she did think that Dr. 
Davenal’s impression of Oswald Cray’s 
haughty manner must have had its 
rise partially in fancy. They were at 
cross-purposes, you see, altogether. 

“ I suppose Oswald Cray felt hurt 
at not being left executor to the will,” 
sagely remarked Miss Bettina. “As 
to the money, I never will believe 
that he, with his independent spirit, 
wanted that.” 

“ He wants his independent spirit 
shaken out of him, if it is to show it- 
self in this offensive manner,” was the 


OSWALD CRAY. 


177 


doctor’s severe remark. ''What did 
he say to you, Sara 

gay she stammered, the 

remembrance of what had really been 
said between them occurring startling- 
ly to her. 

Dr. Davenal noted the hesitating 
words, he noted the crimsoned cheeks ; 
and a doubt which had once before 
risen up within him, rose again now. 
But he let it pass in silence. 

'‘Did he say any thing about the 
money ? Did he hint at it in any 
way 

"Not at all,” she answered in the 
least confused manner 'she could call 
up. " He did not allude' to that, 
papa.” 

"Ah, he would not to you,” was 
>tbe comment of the doctor. 

Miss Bettina had been bending her 
ear. "Did he say whether he meant 
to come here again, Sara ?” 

“ I don’t know, aunt.” 

" You don’t know ! You don’t 
know whether he said so or not ? Is 
your memory growing so short ?” 

"I mean I don’t know whether he 
intends to come here,” was poor 
Sara’s answer. " I suppose he will 
come again some time.” 

And in good truth she did suppose 
he would come again "some time,” 
when the pain of their separation 
should have worn away. 

Sara quitted her seat in haste, 
throwing down a fork with the move- 
ment, and went to the window. She 
had seen the postman enter the gate. 
Not that she was particularly desirous 
of taking a closer view of that func- 
tionary, but in the impulsive hope 
that it might serve to break the thread 
of the discourse. 

"What’s the matter?” exclaimed 
Miss Bettina. 

" It is the postman, aunt.” 

"The postman !” echoed Miss Bet- 
tina sharply, wondering what pos- 
sessed her niece that morning. " If 
it is the postman, you need not fly 
from the breakfast table in that way, 
upsetting the things. Do you call 
that manners ?” 

" Oh, papar,” cried Sara, turning 

11 


round, unmindful of the reproof in her 
flush of excitement, " I do think here 
are letters from Edward I . Some 
foreign mail must be in, for the man 
has an unusual number of letters in 
his hand, and some of them look like 
foreign ones.” 

She stood gazing at the room door, 
absorbed in this new interest. They 
were anxiously wishing to hear from 
Captain Davenal. But no letters ap- 
peared. The man went out again 
v/ith his quick step, and Sara, feclirig 
grievously disappointed, returned 
slowly to her seat, 

"Is the postman gone ?’^ presently 
asked the doctor. 

"Oh, yes, papa. He is half way 
down the street by this time. Ho 
came, I suppose, for one of the ser- 
vants.” 

" He didn’t ring.” 

" No. He seemed to go straight 
to your consulting-room window. 
Perhaps Neal is there, putting the 
room to rights.” 

But Dr. Davenal did not rest so 
easily satisfied. He opened the door 
and called down the passage in an 
imperative voice, 

" Neal ! Are there no letters ?” 

Neal came gliding into the room 
from his pantry, two letters in his 
hand. 

" Why did you not bring them in 
at once ?” somewhat sternl}^ asked the 
doctor as he took them, certain past 
suspicions regarding Neal and suck 
missives arising forcibly to his mind. 

" I was looking for my waiter, sir : 
I have mislaid it somewhere. Oh, I 
left it here, I see.” 

The silver waiter was on a side 
table ; not at all where it ought to be ; 
as if it had been put down heedlessly 
and forgotten. Neal caught it up and 
retired. It might have been as he 
said — that the delay was caused by 
looking for it, and by that only ; and 
Dr. Davenal, more inclined to be 
charitable than suspicious, thought no 
more of the matter. 

In the keen disappointment that 
had come over him, he nearly lost 
sight of other things. Neither of the 


178 


OSWALD CRAY. 


two letters was from his son ; and he 
had so fully expected to hear from him 
by the present mail ! 

Sara’s heart was beating. ‘‘Are 
they not from Edward, papa 

The doctor shook his head as he 
laid the letters down. “ They are 
both from Dick, I expect. His holi- 
day letters.” 

The two letters were respectively 
addressed to Miss Davenal, and Miss 
Sara Davenal. The address to Miss 
Davenal bore evident marks of care 
in the writing ; it Was a clear, regular 
hand, though easily recognizable as a 
schoolboy’s. The address to Sara 
was a scrawl scarcely legible. Upon 
opening the letter Sara found it beau- 
tifully written. Until she came to its 
close she had no suspicion but that it 
was really written to herself : she 
supposed it to be a sort of general 
holiday letter. 

“My dear and respected Aunt 
AND Relatives : 

“As the joyful epoch of Christmas 
approaches, marking the close of 
another half year, we feel how valua- 
ble is that time which the best of us 
are only inclined to regard too lightly. 
Yet I hope it will be found that I 
have not wholly wasted the share of 
it bestowed on me, but have used it to 
the best of my power and abilities. 
When you witness the progress made 
in each branch of my various studies, 
to which I have earnestly and assidu- 
ously devoted my days and hours, 1 
trust that you will find cause to deem 
I have been no thoughtless pupil, but 
have done my best to merit your favor 
and the approbation of my masters. 
In Greek especially — which Dr. Keen 
saw fit to promote me to at Midsum- 
mer — I flatter myself you will be 
satisfied with my advancement : it is 
a delightful study. 

“ Deeply sensible of the inestimable 
price of the talents entrusted to me, 
inxious that not one of them should 
lie fallow through fault of mine, it has 
been my constant and earnest en- 
deavor to improve them, so that they 
may be turned to profitable use in the 


after business of life. By industry, 
by perseverance, and by unflagging 
attention I have striven to progress, 
and I may say that it is with regret I 
part with my beloved studies, even 
for a temporary period. 

“ I am desired to present Dr. Keen’s 
compliments to you and my uncle, and 
to convey to you the intelligence that 
our winter recess will commence Ou 
the 16th of this month, on which day 
I and Leopold shall hope to return to 
Hallingham and to meet you in good 
health. Leopold regrets sensibly that 
he will not be able this year to write 
you his vacation letter : it is a great 
disappointment to him. He has had 
a fester on the thumb of his right 
hand ; it is getting better, but still 
painful. He begs to offer his affec- 
tionate duty to yourself, my uncle, 
Sara, and Mrs. Cray. And trusting 
you will accept the same from me, 

“ I am, my dear Aunt, 

“ Your most sincere and respectful 
Nephew, 

“ Richard John Davenal. 

“ Miss Davenal.” 

A smile stole over Sara’s features 
at the wording of the letter, so unlike 
Dick, and she turned over the en- 
velope. 

“ Yes, Miss Sara Davenal I Dick 
has made a mistake. It is written to 
you. Aunt Bettina.” 

But Miss Bettina’s eyes were glued 
to her own letter, which she held open 
before her. Her lips had drawn them- 
selves in ominously. 

“Is it the holiday letter, Sara ?” 
asked the doctor. 

“ Yes, papa : Richard’s. But it is 
not written to me.” 

Dr. Davenal took up the letter. Its 
writing, almost as beautiful as copper- 
plate, was as easily read as a book : 
Master Richard must have taken the 
greatest pains with it. Miss Davenal’s 
was not so easily read, for it seemed 
to have been scrawled with a skewer. 
She dashed it upon the table in con- 
siderable temper when she came to 
its end, and laid her hand solemnly 
upon it. 


OSWALD CRAY. 


179 • 


Dr. Davenal, if you do not return 
this letter instantly to Dr. Keen, I 
shall. It is a disgrace to have come 
out of any respectable school. 

Who is it from questioned the 
doctor in surprise. 

Who is it from ? — from that wicked 
nephew of yours — Dick. And you to 
encourage him she added, directing 
her severe glance at Sara. It is 
meant, I suppose, for you.^^ 

In point of fact. Master Dick Dave- 
nal had misdirected his letters, send- 
ing his holiday letter to Sar^, and one 
intended exclusively for Sara’s eyes, 
to his aunt. Certainly it was not in- 
tended for those of Miss Bettina. Dr. 
Davenal, in some curiosity, drew to- 
wards him the offending letter. 

'' Dear Old Girl : 

We come home the end of next 
week hurray 1 old Keen was for keep- 
ing us till the week after and shouldn’t 
we have turned rusty but its all fixed 
now, the 16th is the joj^ful day and 
on the 15th we mean to have a bonfire 
out of bounds and shouldn’t we like 
to burn up all our books in it ! you 
cant think how sick we are of them. 
Jopper says bed give all his tin for 
next half if books and studies had 
never been invented and Ime sure I 
would, I hate learning and that’s the 
truth and I havent tried to get on a 
bit for I know its of no use trying. 
Greak’s horrid, and our greak master 
is an awful stick and keeps us to it till 
we feel fit to bufett him its the most 
hateful bothering languidge you can 
imagine and I shall never master a 
line of it and if it werent for cribs I 
should get a caneing every day, latin 
was bad enougff but greak caps it. 
We all got into a row which I’ll tell 
you about when I come home and we 
had our Wednesday and Saturday hol- 
idays stopped for three weeks, it was 
all threw the writing master a shok- 
king sneek who comes four days a 
week and found out something and 
took and told Keen but we have served 
him out, we have had some good 
games this half taking things together 
and if we could berry our books and 


never do another lesson Keens house 
wouldnt be so bad. Leo and some 
more of us were trying to wrench open 
farmer Clupps stable to get at his 
poney when he ran a rusty nale into 
his thum, old Clupp was off to a cattle 
fair by rail and we knew bed be none 
the wiser if we exercized the pony an 
hour or two up and down the common, 
and a jolly time of it I can tell you 
we had only we couldnt find the sadle, 
well leos thum got bad and he hasnt 
been abel to write for ever so long and 
hes uncommon glad of it now for it 
saves him his holiday letter. I had 
to write mine five times over before 
it did and I nearly flung it in the fire 
before Keens face, I never was so sick 
of any thing in my life, its going to 
aunt Bett this time Keen said it went 
to uncle Richard at midsummer, good 
‘buy till next week darling Sara love 
to Carry and mind you get a jolly lot 
of mince pies ready for us. 

Dick Davenal. 

p s hows old Betts deafness, its so 
cold we hope all the ponds will be 
froze to ice tomorrow.” 

Dr. Davenal burst into a fit of 
laughter. The contrast between the 
genuine letter of the boy and the formal 
one dictated by the master was so 
rich. Miss Davenal’s brow wore its 
heaviest frown : the letter was bad 
enough altogether, but the insult to 
herself, the “ old I3ett,” could not be 
forgiven. 

‘‘ I’ll have this letter sent back. Dr. 
Davenal.” 

“ Tush, Bettina ! Send it back, 
indeed ! We were schoolboys and 
schoolgirls ourselves once. Why, 
what’s this — here’s the postman com- 
ing in again I He must have omitted 
to leave all our letters !” 

It was even so. The postman by 
inadvertence had carried away a letter 
addressed to the house, and had now 
come back with it. 

But that mistake was one of the 
greatest pieces of good luck for Neal ; 
and in truth its occurring on that 
morning was a singular coincidence. 


180 


OSWALD CRAY. 


i 


You will agree with me in saying that 
it was quite a dififerent sort of luck 
from any deserved by Neal. Poor 
Dick Davenahs “sneek’’ of a writing- 
master could not stand for honors 
beside the real sneak, Neal. 

Neal ’had not been at Dr. Davenal’s 
window when the postman came in 
the first time, as Sara had surmised ; 
Neal was standing in his favorite cor- 
ner outside, amid the shrubs, having 
a mind to give himself an airing. It 
was to this corner the *postman had 
gone, and he delivered three letters 
into his hands. Neal carried them to 
his pantry and proceeded to examine 
the outsides with his usual curiosity. 
Two of them were those he subse- 
quently carried into the breakfast 
room ; on the third he saw the foreign 
postmark, and recognized the hand- 
writing of Captain Davenal. And, as 
Neal turned this about in his hand, 
he became aware of a curious fact — 
that it was open. The envelope was 
not fastened down. The captain’s 
seal was upon it in wax, but it did 
not serve to fasten it. Whether that 
young officer, who was given to care- 
lessness, had sealed it in this insecure 
manner, or whether it had come open 
in the transit, was of no consequence : 
it was certainly not closed now. 

The temptation proved too strong 
for Mr. Neal. It happened that he 
had a motive, a particular motive, 
apart from his ordinary curiosity, for 
wishing to see the contents of this let- 
ter. lie had chanced to overhear a 
few words spoken between the doctor 
and his daughter some days previously 
— words which Neal could, as he ex- 
pressed it himself, make neither top 
nor tail of ; but they referred to Cap- 
lain Davenal, and created the strongest 
possible wish in Neal’s mind to take 
a peep at the first letter that should 
arrive from the gallant officer. Neal 
had not seen his way to do this at all 
dear ; but it appeared now that for- 
tune had graciously dro])pcd the means 
into his hands. And the temptation 
was too strong to be resisted. 

Hastily reasoning within himself 
(the best of us are too prone to reason 


on our own side of the question, 
ignoring the other) that in all proba- 
bility the breakfast-room had not seen 
or heard the postman, as the man had 
kept on his side the garden, and had 
not rung the door-bell, Neal risked it, 
and carefully drew the letter from the 
envelope. 

A small thin note, addressed to 
Miss Sara Davenal, dropped out of it. 
Neal was too busy to pick it up : his 
eyes were feasting on the opening 
words of Captain Davenal’s letter to 
his father. 

“ Neal, are there no letters ?” 

The interrupting voice was the doc- 
tor’s : and Neal, in an awful fluster, 
popped the open letter and the thin 
one under a dish-cover. There was 
no help for it he might not delay ; 
he dared not take the letter in, open. 
So he carried in the other two in his 
hand, haVing looked in vain for his 
customary waiter. 

It passed off well enough. Neal 
returned to the pantry, and finished 
the perusal of the captain’s letter. 
Then he refolded it, placed the note, 
which he had 7wt opened, inside as 
before, and amended the fastening with 
a modicum of sealing-wax, dropped 
artistically underneath the old seal. 

He was at his wits’ end how to 
convey the letter to the doctor, so 
that no suspicion might rest upon 
himself. Suppress it he dare not, for 
the postman could have testified to its 
delivery when inquiries were made. 
He was coming to the conclusion that 
the best way would be to put it amidst 
the shrubs, as if he or the postman 
had dropped it, and let somebody find 
it and convey it to Dr. Davenal, when 
the postman’s knock at the hall door 
aroused him. 

‘‘ I don’t know how I came to over- 
look this,” said the man, handing in a 
letter. ‘‘It had got slipped among 
the others somehow, and I didn’t find 
it till I was ever so far down the 
street.” 

If ever Neal believed in the descent 
of special favors from the clouds, he 
believed in it then. The letter, brought 
back by the postman, was directed to 


OSWALD CRAY. 


181 


Watton. Neal carried it to his pantry, 
deposited the other upon his silver 
waiter, and took it to the breakfast-' 
room. 

How’s this cried the doctor. 

^‘The letter-man carried it away 
with him sir ; by some mistake, he 
says,” answered Neal, with a steady 
tongue and unflinching eye. 

Stupid fellow !” cried the doctor. 
But he spoke in a good-natured tone. 
None, save be, knew how welcome a 
sight was the handwriting of his son. 

And when Neal carried down the 
breakfast-things he coolly told Watton 
there was a letter for her lying in his 
pantry, which had come by the morn- 
ing post. 

You might have brought it down,” 
was Watton ’s answer. 

So I might,” civilly remarked 
Neal. “ I laid it there and fprgot it.” 


CHAPTER XXYI. 

THE doctor’s birthday. 

The dead of the winter passed. 
That is, Christmas was turned, and 
January had come in and was drawing 
to a close. 

Dr. Davenal’s state of health w,as 
beginning to attract attention. It 
cannot be said that absolute fears were 
excited, but people said to each other 
and to him that he ought to take more 
care. Especial care of himself he 
certainly did not take, and he seemed 
to take cold upon cold. It must not 
be thought that Dr. Davenal was reck- 
lessly neglectful, supinely careless. It 
was not that at all. But he was one 
of the many who seem to have an 
assured trust in their own constitu- 
tion ; almost believing their state of 
good health immutable. Other folks 
are liable to ailments, but they have 
no fear of themselves. This is some- 
times notably the c^se with those who 
have never experienced illness, who 
have passed an active life with neither 
an ache nor a pain. 


As had Dr. Davenal. Of a naturally 
good constitution, temperate in his 
habits, taking a good deal of exercise 
one way or other, his mind always 
occupied, he did not know what it was 
to have a day’s illness. The great 
blow which had fallen upon him in the 
death of his son told upon his mind 
more than upon his body. If it had 
bent his shoulders and left lines of care 
upon his face, it had not made him ill. 
It was reserved for the later calamity 
to do that — that terrible secret, whose 
particulars none save the doctor knew. 
That had nearly prostrated him — it 
had re-acted on the body ; and when 
the cold fastened on him the day he 
had to hasten from Mrs. Scott’s hot 
room to the Infirmary, it laid hold of 
him forever. 

He could not shake it off. ]^^iss 
Davenal told him somewhat crossly 
that he kept catching cold upon cold ; 
but the doctor knew himself that it 
was that first cold hanging about him. 
He apprehended no real danger : ho 
did not pay much attention to it. 
Had he possessed a mind at rest, ho 
might have thought more of the body’s 
ailments, but with that great burden 
of despair — and, in truth, it was little 
else — -weighing him down, what in 
comparison was any sickness of body ‘f 
As to lying by, be never so much as 
gave it a thought. So long as he cou]<l 
go about, he would go about. He 
thought of others before himself; he 
was one who strove hard to do his 
duty in the sight of God, following 
his Saviour’s precepts; and he had 
deemed it little less than a sin had he 
selfishly stopped indoors to nurse him- 
self, when there might be fellow-crea- 
tures dying for the want of his aid. 
It was very easy to say other doctors 
might attend for him : we all know 
how valuable in illness is the })resenc(‘ 
of the physician we trust; and none 
in Hallingham was trusted as was Dr. 
Davenal. 

And so, with his aching mind and 
his aching body, he went about his 
work. It is just possible that a fort- 
night or so’s rest might have saved 
him, but he did not take it. He went 


182 


OSWALD CRAY. 


about his work #as usual — nay, with . 
more than his wonted activity, for it 
was a season of much sicjvness at 
Hallingham, as it was that winter in 
many other places. He bore on, never 
flagging ; but he grew weaker day by 
day, and everybody remarked how 
poorly the doctor was looking. No 
fears for his state were aroused in- 
doors. Sara attributed all she saw 
amiss in him to the burden of that 
great secret, of which she had only 
partial cognizance ; and Miss Davenal 
was a great deal more given to be 
cross than to pity. 

For Bettina Davenal suspected 
neither illness of body nor illness of 
mind. How should she connect the 
latter with the prosperous physician ? 
She knew that he had been grieved at 
the going abroad of his son EdAvard, a 
grief in which she by no means joine'd, 
deeming that a little roughing it out 
in the world would be found of whole- 
some benefit to the indulged son and 
brave captain ; but as to any real 
grief or sorrow weighing upon the 
doctor, she never gave a thought to it. 
He was silent, and thin, and worn : 
he had no appetite ; his spirits seemed 
gone : she saw all this, but never sup- 
posed it was caused by any thing but 
the departure of his son. 

His not eating was made the worst 
grievance of by Miss Bettina. Once 
before, in an unusual season of sick- 
ness, the doctor had — not, perhaps, 
lost his appetite, but allowed himself 
no time for his meals. Miss Bettina 
believed that this was a similar case ; 
that his patients were absorbing his 
appetite and his energies ; and she 
gave him a good sound lecturing, as 
slie might have given to Dick. Get 
what she would for the table, plain 
food or dainties, it seemed all one to 
the doctor: he ’would taste perhaps 
to please lier, but he could not eat. 

“ 1 can’t help it,” he said to her one 
day. “ I suppose I am worse than 
you think.” 

For the truth, or rather a suspicion 
of it, had at length dawned on Dr. 
Davenal — that he was more seriously 
ill than he had allowed himself to 


imagine. Unfavorable symptoms, con- 
nected with his chest and lungs, had 
forced themselves upon his notice 
on that very morning, and ho asked 
himself what they meant, and what 
they boded. Had he neglected him- 
self too long ? 

It was on the 24th of January, a 
notable day in the doctor’s household, 
for it was his birthday, and was always 
kept amongst themselves. Dick and 
Leo made the day a plea for the ex- 
tension of their holidays. The school 
generally re-opened about a week ear- 
lier, but of course, as they told their 
uncle, they could not go back with his 
birthday so neai^: they must stay to 
wish him many happy returns of it. 
Miss Davenal saw no reason in the 
plea, and was severe when the doctor 
allowed it — as he always did ; she 
would never keep boys at home a 
single hour after the school opened. 
But with Uncle Richard to back them, 
Dick and Leo did not care for Aunt 
Bettina. 

Yes, it was on this morning that 
Dr. Davenal awoke to the serious 
state of his own health. If what he 
suspected was true, he feared he 
should not be long in this world. 

He said nothing. He went out as 
usual in his close carriage, Avhich ho 
had latterly used, and forgot not a 
single call. But he said to himself 
that perhaps in a few days, when 
he should have brought through, if 
Heaven willed, one or two patients 
who were lying in extreme danger, 
he might make arrangements for stop- 
ping at home and nursing himself. 

On this same day the doctor again 
saw Oswald Cray. He had occasion 
to give some directions to Mark, 
missed seeing him at the Infirmary, 
and told Roger to drive to the abbey. 
Upon entering, he found not Mark, 
but Oswald. Oswald, it appeared, 
had just called, and was waiting for 
Mrs. Cray to come .down. Mark was 
out. 

Dr. Davenal cherished no resent 
raent. He deemed that Oswald Craj 
had behaved to him badly, but he 
had never been of a retaliating spirit, 


OSWALD CRAY. 


183 


and least of all was be inclined to it 
now. 

The doctor pressed Oswald Cray’s 
hand cordially as he shook it. The 
thought flashed over him that he would 
make one more effort towards a recon- 
ciliation. A few moments, given to 
commonplace salutations and then he 
spoke. 

“ This is my birthday, Mr. Oswald 
Cray. Mark and Caroline are coming 
to dine with us, will you join them 
You are very kind. But I must 
go up to London by the seven train.” 

Not a word of wishing” he could 
come, or regret that he could not. 
The doctor noticed that; he noticed 
also that his tone was more polite than 
warm. But he did not yet give him up. 

It maybe the last birthday I shall 
see. We shall be glad to welcome 
you.” 

“ I hope you will see many yet ; but 
I am obliged to'return to town. Thank 
you, all the same.” 

Coldly courteous still ! Dr. Dave- 
nal, who would not wait, as Mark was 
out, again offered his hand in parting. 

“ Some estrangement has come be- 
tween us which I do not understand, 
Mr. Oswald Cray. Remember what 
I say, should this be the last time we 
speak together, that it is you who have 
to answer for it, not I.” 

^‘One word, Dr. Davenal,” for the 
doctor was turning away to regain his 
carriage. Believe at least this much, 
that none can regret the estrangement 
more than I regret it.” 

Is it explainable ?” 

Not by me,” replied Oswald, some- 
what of his bid hauteur coming upon 
him. He honestly believed in his 
heart that Dr. Davenal, in saying these 
few words, was but acting a part. 

“ Fare you well,” said the doctor, as 
he went out. And they were the last 
words ever spoken between them. 

It was a social family meeting, the 
dinner that evening at Dr. DavenaPs, 
and for some of its partakers a right 
merry one. Mark Cray and his wife 
were merry as heart could wish, the 
two boys boisterously so. Miss Dave- 
nal as much so as she ever permitted 


herself to he. Sara was quiet, the 
<^octor was ill, and a gentleman whom 
the doctor had invited after Oswald 
Cray declined, was grieving over the 
alteration so conspicuously visible in 
Dr. Davenal. 

This was the Rev. John Stephenson, 
He was at Hallingham on business, 
had called that afternoon on Dr. Dave- 
nal, and the doctor had pressed him 
to stay to dinner. 

When the cloth was removed, and 
Mr. Stephenson had said grace, and 
Dick and Leo were up to their eyes in 
nuts and oranges, Mark Cray stood in 
his place and made a natty little 
speech. Mark was fond of making 
speeches : they were a great deal more 
to his taste than surgical operations. 
His present effort lasted five minutes, 
and wound up with wishing the doctor 
many happy returns of the day. 

Hurrah I” shouted Dick. Uncle 
Richard, I hope you’ll have a hundred 
birthdays yet !” 

And plenty of good things for you 
to eat as they come round, eh, Dick ?” 
rejoined the doctor with a smile. 

“ Oh, of course,” cried Dick, his 
eyes sparkling. It always does 
come in the Christmas holidays, you 
know.” 

The doctor slightly rose from his 
chair, leaning with both hands on the 
table. His manner was subdued, his 
voice inexpressibly gentle and loving. 

My dear friends, I thank you for 
your kindness ; I thank you from my 
very heart. I am not well, and you 
must accept these few words in answer 
to Mark’s more elaborate speech. It 
may be the last time I shall be here to 
receive y^nr good wishes or to thank 
you for them. May God bless you !” 
and he raised his hands slowly and 
solemnly. May God bless and love 
you all when I shall be gone !” 

The words took them utterly by 
surprise. Sara bent her head, and 
pressed her hands upon her bosom as 
if to press down the sudden sobs that 
came and went as if they would choke 
her ; Dick and Leo stared ; Miss Bet- 
tina complacently nodded her acknowl- 
edgments, she knew not why, for she 


184 


OSWALD C II A Y. 


had failed to bear; and Caroline 
looked up in wonder. Mark 
was the lirst to sp4ak. 

Do you feel ill, sir 

“ Not particularly ; not much more 
so than I have felt lately. I don’t 
think I am very well, Markv” 

“ You are overworked, sir. You 
must take some rest.” 

“ Lest may be nearer for me than 
we think, Mark.” 

Oh, papa, don’t 1 Don’t speak so, 
unless you would break my heart !” 

Her emotion had become uncontrol- 
lable, and the anguish had spoken out. 
Never until that moment had the pros- 
pect of losing her father been brought 
palpably before Sara, and it was more 
than she well knew how to bear. In 
spite of her natural reticence of feeling, 
of the presence of a stranger, she quite 
shook with her hysterical sobs. 

Miss Davenal was frightened, and 
somewhat indignant. “What on 
earth’s the matter with Sara?” 

“Hush, Aunt Bettina,” called out 
Mrs. Cray. “ Don’t scold her. Uncle 
llichard has been talking gloomily. 
He says he is ill.” 

“ III ! of course ho is ill,” retorted 
Miss tlettina, who had contrived to 
hear. “ He won’t eat. He is out and 
about with his patients from morning 
till night, and then comes in too tired 
to eat any thing. He has not swal- 
lowed a couple of ounces of meat for all 
the last week. What can he expect 
but to be ill ? But there’s no cause 
for Sara to burst into a violent fit of 
crying over it. Will you be so kind 
as to excuse it, sir ?” she added, in her 
stately courtesy, to the clergyman who 
was sitting at her right hand. 

He bowed. A man who has known 
adversity, as he had, can feel for sor- 
row, and his heart was aching for the 
grief of the child, and for the serious 
change he saw in the father, his bene- 
factor. Mark turned to Miss Dave- 
nal. 

“It is just what I say. Miss Bet- 
tina, that the doctor is overworked. 
Ho wants a week or two’s rest.” 

“ And what are you good for if you 


I can’t contrive that he should have it ?” 
i was her answer. “ I think you might 
I see his patients for him.” 

! “So I could,” ans\tered Mark. 
“ Only he won’t let me.” 

Sara’s emotion was subsiding ; she 
sat very still now, her head a little 
bent, as if ashamed of having be- 
trayed it ; the tears dried upon her 
cheeks, but an uncontrollable sob 
broke from her now and then. Dr. 
Davenal had taken her hand under 
the table, for she sat next to him, and 
was holding it in his. 

“You, foolish child 1” he fondly 
whisj)ered. 

“ Papa, if — if any thing were to 
happen to you — if you were to go and 
leave me here alone, I should die,” 
was the answer, uttered passionately. 

“Hush, hush! My darling, you 
and I are alike in the hands of a 
loving God.” 

She laid her finger^again upon her 
bosom. How violently it was beat- 
ing, how difficult it was to still the 
throbs of pain, she alone knew. 

“ I met that gentleman this after- 
noon, the connection of Lady Oswald’s 
whom I saw for the first time the day 
of the funeral,” spoke up the clergy- 
man, breaking the silence which had 
fallen upon the room. “ Mr. Oswald 
Cray.” 

“ I met him too,” said the doctor. 
“ It was at your house, Mark. I 
asked him to come here to-day, but 
he declined.” 

“ He is gone back to town, I think,” 
said Mark. 

“ He said he was going.” 

“ Uncle llichard, how is it Oswald 
never comes here now ?” asked Mrs. 
Cray. “ Is be offended at any thing ?” 

“ He appears to have taken um- 
brage at something or other, Carine,” 
was the doctor’^ answer. 

“I should judge him to be a very 
estimable sort of a man,” observed 
Mr. Stc])heiison. “ Straightforward 
and honorable.” 

“ Estimable men take crotchets into 
their heads sometimes,” remarked the 
doctor, who would not say that Os- 




OSWALD CRAY. 


185 


wald Cray’s “ crotchet ” was connected 
with the will. There’s no doubt that 
he is an honorable man.” 

Did you ask him to dine here, 
Uncle Richard ?” cried Leo. The 
very question Sara was wishing to 
put. 

I did, my boy.” 

And wouldn’t he ?” rejoined Mark. 

ISTo, he wouldn’t. And, mind, I 
think he wouldnH ; although he de- 
clined upon the plea of having to get 
back to town.” 

“ My I what a stupid duff he was I” 
exclaimed Richard. Did he know 
there was going to be a turkey and 
plum-pudding ?” 

'' I didn’t tell him that, Dick. My 
impression is, that he never means to 
enter our house again,” the doctor 
added in a low tone to his daughter. 

“ But why ?” exclaimed Caroline, 
who sat on the other side the doctor 
and caught the words. “ There must 
be something extraordinary at the 
bottom of all this.” 

Ne^er mind going into it, now, 
Carine,” whispered the doctor. His 
grievance, I am convinced, is con- 
nected with Lady Oswald’s will, but 
we need not say so before Mr. Ste- 
phenson.” 

Sara looked up hastily, impulsive 
words rising to her lips ; but she rec- 
ollected herself, and bent her head 
again in silence. Hot even to her 
father dared she to say that his con- 
clusion was a mistaken one. 

“ Uncle Richard, now that I look 
at you, it does appear to me that you 
are changed for the worse,” remarked 
Mrs. Cray. Oswald said so this 
afternoon after you went out — and by- 
the-way you might have stopped to 
see me ; I was down a minute after you 
went away. What is it that ails you ?” 

I think I have a cold hanging 
about me, Carine,” was the doctor’s 
slighting answer, for he did not choose 
again to enter upon the subject of his 
ailments; I must nurse myself, as 
Mark says.” 

‘"Of course you must. Hallingham 
would not understand your being ill, 
you know.” 


True,” laughed the doctor. 

Caroline Cray, seeing her uncle 
daily, or nearly so, had not perceived 
the great change which had been grad- 
ually going bn in him. But to Mr. 
Stephenson, who had not met him 
since the time of Lady Oswald’s death, 
it was all too palpable. And so it 
had been that day to Oswald Cray, 
who had been startled at the signs of 
illness, of decay ; and at sight of that 
wan face and drooping form his heart 
had yearned to the man whom he had 
once so respected, in spite of the cloud 
that was resting upon him. 

“ We must not forget the captain to- 
day, doctor,” spoke up Mark. “ Have 
you heard from him again ?” 

Oh, yes.” 

"‘How does he like his Maltese 
quarters ?” 

“I am not sure that he has said. 
It is not of much consequence whether 
he liked them or not. The regiment 
was ordered on to India.” 

“ To India I” 

“Yes.” It was impossible not to 
note the sad tone in which the mono- 
syllable was spoken. Dr. Davenal 
had begun to know that he and his 
son should never again meet on earth ; 
the son whom he so loved ! ^ 

Somehow, what with one thing and 
another, that birth-day evening was a 
sadder one than they had been accus- 
tomed to spend. Mark Cray, as he 
walked home with his wife afterwards, 
remarked that it was “ slow.” But 
nobody dreamt of any thing like fear 
for the doctor, save his daughter and 
the Reverend Mr. Stephenson. 

“ I can never be sufficiently grate- 
ful to you, sir,” murmured the clergy- 
man, as he was leaving. “ Neither 
can my brother. You have done for 
us what I believe no other man living 
would have done. May Heaven re- 
ward you, and restore you to health 
and strength !” 

“ I did but my duty,” answered the 
doctor. “ Thfe money belonged to 
you, not to me. I am only glad there 
were no vexatious legal obstacles 
brought up to obstruct the transfer. 
I shall always be glad to see you, re- 


186 


OSWALD CRAY. 


member, when you come to Halling- 
ham.’^ 

Mr. Stephenson thanked him. But 
as he went out, the impression was 
strong upon his mind that the doctor 
himself would not long be in Halling- 
ham. 

And Sara ? What must it have 
been for her ? Perhaps the most 
grievous trouble that can arise in a 
daughter’s mind is the sudden fear 
of a beloved father’s coming death. 
Her mind was one chaos of tumultu- 
ous emotion. She seemed to have 
accepted the fear as a certainty, to 
have been obliged to accept it. Oh, 
what would save him ? — could not 
the whole faculty restore his precious 
life ? And so she passed another 
night of anguish, like unto the one 
she had passed nearly two months 
before, after parting with Oswald 
Cray in the abbey graveyard — like 
it, but more apprehensively painful ; 
and she wondered how she got 
through it. 

With the morning, things did not 
wear as intensely gloomy an aspect. 
The broad daylight, the avocations 
and bustle of daily life, are an an- 
tidote to gloom, and the worst pros- 
pect loses some of its darkness then. 
She tried to reason with herself that 
he could not have become so ill on a 
sudden as to be past recovery, she 
tried to say that it was foolish even 
to think it. 

But her mind could not be at rest, 
her state of suspense was intolerable, 
and before entering the breakfast-room 
she knocked at her father’s door. 

Come in.” 

Dr. Davenal^was up and seated in 
his consulting-room ; he was closing 
the Bible as Sara entered. It was 
his custom to read a few minutes be- 
fore he left his rooms in a morning. 

Sara stood before her father in agi- 
tation, her tongue utterly failing her. 
She had wished to be relieved of her 
great care, and now she did not know 
how to speak of it. 

What is it, my dear ?” 

Oh, papa !” — and the wouiis came 
freely enough with the burst of pent- 


up anguish — cannot live in this 
suspense. What did you mean last 
night ? What is it that is the matter 
with you ?” 

'' I scarcely know, Sara. Only that 
I feel ill.” 

^‘But — ^you — cannot — be going to 
die ?” 

“ Hush, my child I You must not 
agitate yourself in this way. Die ? 
Well, no, I hope not,’’ he added, quite 
in a joking manner. “I feel ten per 
cent, better this morning than I did 
yesterday.” 

“ Do you ?” she eagerly cried. Bui 
— what you said last night ? — ” 

“Last night I felt gloomy — op- 
pressed. Serious thoughts do intrudci 
themselves sometimes on one’s birth- 
day. And I was really ill yesterday. 
I feel quite a different man to-day.” 

Her fears were growing wonder- 
fully calmer. “ You are sure, papa ?” 

“ Sure of what ? That I am bet- 
ter ? — I am sure I feel so. I shall be 
all right, child, I hope.” 

“ Won’t you have advice, papa ?” 
she imploringly said. 

“ Advice ? That’s a compliment 
to myself, young lady. Hallingham 
would tell you that there’s no advice 
better than Dr. Davenal’s own.” 

“ But, papa — I mean different ad- 
vice. I thought of the clever London 
doctors. You must have them down 
to see you.” 

“ Some of the clever London doc- 
tors would be glad of the country- 
man Richard Davenal’s advice. Se- 
riously speaking, my dear, though I 
say it in all modesty, I don’t believe 
there’s a man in Europe more skilful 
than myself.” 

“ But they might suggest remedies 
that you would not think of. Oh, 
papa I if there’s a necessity, do sum- 
mon them !” 

“ Be assured of one thing, Sara, 
and set your mind at rest. Should 
the necessity arise, I will not fail to 
seek any one or any thing that I think 
may help me. My life has not of late 
been a happy one, but I am not yet 
tired of it ; I wish I may live long, 
not only for your sake, but for — for 


OSWALD CRAY. 


187 


other interests. There^s a double ne- 
cessity for it now.’^ 

And you will not go out to-day, 
papa 

To-day I must. I have not made 
arrangements to the contrary. But I 
do mean to give myself a rest, perhaps 
beginning with to-morrow. I feel a 
great deal better to-day — quite an- 
other man.’^ 

How the words lightened her heart ! 
Dr. Davenal really did feel much bet- 
ter, and the saddened spirit, the almost 
ominous feeling, which had clung to 
him the night before, had vanished. 
But he spoke more lightly of his ill- 
ness than he would have done had he 
not seen how it was affecting her. 

Dick came drumming at the door 
and then pushed it open with a bang. 

Breakfast’s waiting, Uncle Rich- 
ard. And Aunt Bett — Why ! are you 
there broke off the young gentle- 
man as his eyes fell upon Sara. “ Pm 
afraid you’ll catch it. Aunt Bett 
thinks you are not down, and it’s ten 
minutes past eight.” 

Are you ready for school, Dick ?” 
asked his uncle. ‘‘ Elated at the pros- 
pect of returning ?” . 

Dick pulled a long face. The two 
boys were going back that day. A 
sore trial to Dick, who, it must be 
confessed, had been born with an in- 
nate antipathy to books. 

‘^You’ll have us home at Easter, 
Uncle Richard ?” he pleaded in a 
piteous tone. 

Not if I know it, Dick. Holi- 
days twice a year were thought quite 
enough in my school-days, and I see 
no reason for their not being thought 
enough now.” 

Half the boys go home at Easter, 
and stop a fortnight,” bemoaned Dick. 

''Yery likely. If half the boys 
have friends who prefer play to work 
for them. Pm only glad the other half 
set a better example. Dicky, boy, 
you’ll enjoy your Midsummer holi- 
days all the more keenly for having 
none at Easter.” 

The doctor caught hold of the boy 
and wound his arm affectionately 


round him as they proceeded across 
the hall to the breakfast-room. Miss 
Davenal greeted Sara with one of her 
severest aspects, but before she could 
begin her lecture Mark Cray had burst 
in upon them. 

Have you heard the news ?” he 
exclaimed, in a state of excitement 
never yet witnessed in easy Mark 
Cray. Doctor, have you had letters 
yet ?” 

'‘What news? What letters?” 
asked the doctor. 

“ Caroline has got her money.” 

“ Carolinegot her money ?” repeated 
Dr. Davenal, understanding no better 
than the rest did. 

“ The Chancery case is decided,” 
explained Mark. “Judgment was 
given yesterday, and it is in her favor. 
She’ll get the money directly now.” 

“ How do you know this, Mark ?” 

“ It is in the evening papers — re- 
ported in full. I call for my letters 
sometimes if I am passing the post- 
office, and I did so this morning and 
got this paper. White, the lawyer, 
sent it, I expect, and we shall no 
doubt hear by this evening’s post.” 

“ Well, Mark, I am very glad. 
Jrlstice lay on Caroline’s side, there- 
fore i\is right that she should have 
it. You must settle it upon her as 
soon as you touch the money.” 

“ Oh, of course,” said Mark. 


CHAPTER XXYII. 

BAD NEWS FOR HALLINGHAM 

“ I SAY, Neal, what sort of a place 
is St. Paul’s Churchyard ?” 

The questioner was Watton. She 
sat in the servants’ room near the 
window, against which the rain was 
pattering, some household sewing in 
her hand. Neal, who had entered tc 
get a glass he wanted, was rather taken 
with surprise, but he was not one to 
show it in his manner. 

“ Did you never see it ?” he asked. 


188 


OSWALD CRAY. 


I saw it in a picture once. I 
couldn’t see it elsewajs ; I’ve never 
been to London.” 

“ It is a large space of land with 
houses round it, and the cathedral in 
the middle,” explained Neal, who 
seemed always ready to oblige his 
fellow-servants, especially Watton. 
“ It’s a thoroughfare, you know ; the 
road from Ludgate Hill to Cheapside 
winds around on each side the church, 
between it and the houses.” 

Is it very noisy ?” 

Pretty well for that. But the 
London people don’t seem to care for 
noise. I expect they are so used to it 
that they don’t hear it.” 

“ The houses round St. Paul’s are 
warehouses, arn’t they ?” 

'‘Warehouses and shops. The 
shops are mostly on one side, and the 
warehouses on the other.” 

" I)o you know a place called Can- 
non Street ?” 

“ I should think I do. It leads 
down from St. Paul’s to King William 
Street. Why do you ask ?” 

“ Well, ” said Watton slowly, as if 
she were deliberating something in 
her mind, " I’m not sure but I am go- 
ing to live there.” 

"To live in St. Paul’s Church- 
yard ?” repeated Neal. 

" I have had a place offered me 
there, and it seems to me a very eli- 
gible one,” said Watton. " It’s to go 
as housekeeper in a house of business ; 
some large wholesale place, by what I 
can understand. I should have two 
or three servants under me, and twen- 
ty-five pounds a year. It seems good, 
doesn’t it ?” 

" Capital,” assented Neal. " Is it 
in St. Paul’s Churchyard ?” 

" It’s either in St. Paul’s Church- 
yard or Cannon Street. She isn’t 
quite sure which, she says. Any way, 
it’s close to St. Paul’s.” 

"Who’s ‘she’?” questioned Neal. 

" My sister. Her husband is in 
this establishment, a traveller, or 
something of that. lie has got on 
well : he was only day assistant in a 
shop when she married him, fifteen 
years ago, and now he gets two or 


three hundred a year. When Miss 
Bettina told me I should have to 
leave, I wrote to my sister and asked 
her to look out for me, and she has 
sent me word of this.” 

"But can she get the place for 
you ?” inquired Neal, who was prompt 
at weighing probabilities and improb- 
abilities in his mind. 

" It is in this way. The present 
housekeeper has been there a good 
while and is much respected by the 
masters, and they have asked her to 
look out for somebody to take her 
place. My sister’s intimate with her, 
and has spoken to her about me.” 

" Why is she going to leave, her- 
self?” questioned Neal, liking to come 
to the bottom of every thing. 

Watton laughed. "She is going 
to begin life on her own score : she’s 
about to be married. I think it’s 
rather venturesome, those middle-aged 
persons marrying : I wouldn’t, I 
know.” 

" Wait until you are asked,” re- 
turned Neal, not over gallantly. 

" I have been asked more than once 
in my life,” said Watton. " But I 
didn’t see my way clear. It’s all a 
venture. A good many risk it and a 
few don’t. I’d rather be one of the 
few. My goodness ! how it rains !” 

" When do you leave here ?” 

"When I get a comfortable place. 
Miss Bettina said I was not to hurry. It 
isn’t as if I were leaving for any fault, or 
to make room for another. doesn’t 
like my leaving at all, you know.” 

Neal nodded. " I heard her grumb- 
ling to the doctor like any thing about 
it. She talks loud, and one can’t shut 
one’s ears at will.” 

" She need not grumble to the doc- 
tor. It is not his fault, lie spoke 
to me himself, saying how sorry he 
was to part with me, but he could 
not help it. ‘ He had had a severe 
loss of money,’ he' said, which ren- 
dered it necessary that he should alter 
the rate of his expenditure. I won- 
der,” added AYatton, musingly, "how 
he came to lose it.” 

Neal coughed. " Perhaps some 
bank broke 1” 


OSWALD CRAY; 


“Perhaps it did/’ answered Wat- 
ton. “ They are ticklish things, those 
banks. I say, Neal, there’s the doc- 
tor’s bell.” 

Neal heard the bell for himself and 
quitted the room to answer it. Wat- 
ton got up, put down her work, shook 
a few threads from her gown, opened 
a drawer apd took out a letter. 

She was going up-stairs Jo Miss 
Bettina, to show' her the letter she 
had received, and to ask her advice 
upon the situation mentioned in it. 
She felt very much inclined to try for 
it ; only she felt a shrinking doubt of 
London. Many persons do who have 
lived to middle age in the country. 

Neal entered the room in answer to 
the ring. The doctor had been out 
that morning, but returned earlier 
than usual, for it was not much past 
twelve. It was the day subsequent to 
the departure for school of Dick and 
Leo. 

“What a poor fire you have got 
here, Neal I” said the doctor. “ Bring 
a few sticks and pile the coal on. I 
feel chilly.” 

“ I hope you have not taken a fresh 
cold, sir,” respectfully observed Neal, 
as he stirred up the fire preparatory 
to getting the sticks. 

Whether Neal w'as right or not as 
to the fresh cold, certain it was that 
before night unfavorable symptoms 
began to manifest themselves in Dr. 
Davenal.' And they increased rapidly. 

A few hours, and the new'S w^ent 
forth to the town — Dr. Davenal was 
in danger. The consternation it ex- 
cited cannot well be described — and 
if described would scarcely be be- 
lieved. Numbers upon numbers in 
that town looked upon Dr. Davenal 
in the light of a public benefactor : 
they honestly believed that his death 
would be one of the greatest calami- 
ties that could befal them : they be- 
lieved that, if he went, nobody else 
could bring them through danger, 
should it come upon them. 

They hastened to the door with 
their anxious inquiries ; they saw the 
medical men of Hallingham pouring 
in. What was the matter with him ? 


189 

they eagerly asked. How was he 
seized ? 

It was inflammation of the chest, 
or lungs, or both, they were told. It 
was, in fact, an increase of the cold 
which had been so long hanging upon 
him, and which he had neglected. 
Oh, only a cold I they repeated care- 
lessly as they listened — what a mercy 
that it was nothing worse. And they 
went away re-assured. 

A day or two, and there came 
down a physician from London in an- 
swer to a telegraphic despatch. A 
day or two more and an ominous 
whisper went forth to the town — 
that hope was over. The saddened 
inhabitants paced to and fro, or col- 
lected in groups about the door, and 
glanced up at the doctor’s windows, 
fearing if perchance the blinds should 
have been 'drawn since they last 
looked. They watched the medical 
men glide in and out ; they saw a 
lawyer go in with a bustling step, and 
came to the conclusion that he went to 
make the will. Altogether Halling- 
ham was in a fever of excitement. 

But there occurred a change : con- 
trary -to even the most sanguine ex- 
pectations, a change seemed to take 
place for the better. Dr. Davenal 
rallied. The most painful symptoms 
left him, and some of those around 
him said he was getting well. 

One evening at dusk Neal was ob- 
served to come out of the house with 
a quick movement and hasten up the 
street. As usual he was instantly 
surrounded, waylaid by anxious in- 
quirers. 

Yes, it was perfectly true, Neal 
answered, his master was so much 
better as to surprise all who saw him. 
The change took place early that 
morning, and he had been mending 
ever since. He was well , enough to 
sit up : was sitting up then. 

Then there was a hope that he’d 
recover ? the questioners rejoined, 
scarcely daring to speak the joyful 
words. 

Oh, yes, there seemed every hope 
of it now. Mr. Cray, who had just 
gone out, remarked to him, Neal, that 


190 


OSWALD CRAY. 


he looked upon his master as cured. 
But he couldn’t stop to talk more 
with them then : he was hastening to 
the chemist’s for a draught which the 
doctor himself had sent him for. 

Neal got the draught, imparting 
the news of the doctor’s wonderful 
improvement to the crowd collecting 
at the chemist’s, for no end of gossipers 
pressed into the shop when they saw 
Neal there. Eagerly they listened to 
the cheering account, and went home 
relieved of their fears. 

Neal went out of the shop, retraced 
the streets with his soft tread, and 
arrived at home. Entering the con- 
sulting-room, where the fire in the 
grate was getting low, he passed on 
to his master’s bed-chamber. Quite 
a bright chamber for an invalid’s. 
The fire was blazing in the grate, and 
a handsome lamp, shining through 
the ornamental pink shade that 
covered its globe, stood on the small 
round table. The bed was at the far 
end of the room in a corner, and Dr. 
Davenal sat in an easy-chair near the 
fire. He was dressed, all but his 
coat ; in place of that, he wore a warm 
quilted dressing-gown of soft, rich 
silk : one of those rarely handsome 
dressing-gowns that seem made to be 
looked at, not to be worn. 

He did not appear very ill. Wan 
and worn certainly, but not so ill as 
might have been expected. His 
breath and voice were the worst : 
both were painfully weak. The table 
had been drawn close to him, and he 
was writing at it. A tolerably long 
letter it looked like, covering three 
sides of large note-paper. Perhaps, 
if the truth had been declared, he had 
got up purposely to write this letter. 

Sara sat on the other side the fire- 
place, ready to wait upon him. How 
she had borne the agony of the last 
few days and been calmj she did not 
know, she never would know : it was 
one of the sharp lessons learned from 
life’s necessities. You may be with 
him,” the physician in London had 
said to her, “ provided you can main- 
tain composure in his presence. The 
witnessing of a child’s grief is some- 


times the worst agony that the dying 
have to bear. I cannot sanction 
your being in the room unless you 
can promise to be calm.” 

will promise it,” replied Sara, 
in a low tone ; but that one expression, 
^‘the dying” had turned her whole 
heart to sickness. 

Yes, it was one of the lessons that 
must be learned in the stern school of 
life — the maintaining a composed ex- 
terior when the heart is breaking. 
That she was given to reticence of 
feeling by nature was of service to 
Sara Davenal then. But surely the 
trials that had latterly fallen upon her 
were very bitter, the battle just now 
sharp and keen. 

She sat there in her soft dress of 
violet merino, so quiet and unobtru- 
sive in the sick room, with its little 
white lace collar and the narrow lace 
cuffs turned up on the bands of the 
sleeves at the wrist. The first day of 
his illness she had on a silk dress, 
rustling against the chairs and tables, 
and she had the good sense to go and 
change it. The chair she sat in was 
an elbow one, and her hot cheek 
rested on her fingers, as she strove to 
drive back the inward question that 
would intrude itself, whether this im- 
provement was for good, or only a 
fallacious one. She sat perfectly still, 
her eyes following the motion of his 
feeble fingers, and it was thus that 
Neal interrupted them. 

‘‘ The draught, sir,” he said, laying 
it on the table. 

Set a wine-glass by it,” said the 
doctor. That will do.” 

So slowly and feebly I The voice 
seemed to come from deep down in 
his chest, and not to be the doctor’s 
voice at all. Neal brought the wine- 
glass as desired, and quitted the 
room, and the doctor wrote on. 

Only for a minute or two : the let- 
ter was drawing to a close. Dr. 
Davenal pressed it with the. blotting- 
paper, read it to himself slowly, and 
then folded, it and put it in an en- 
velope. In all this, his fingers seemed 
scarcely able to perform their office. 
He fastened it down, ^nd wrote on 


OSWALD CRAY. 


191 


the outside * his son’s name. Then he 
looked at Sara, touching the letter 
with his finger. 

My dear, when the next mail 
goes out, should you have occasion to 
write of me, let this be inclosed.” 

To write of you, papa ?” she re- 
peated in a faltering tone. But she 
need not have asked the question — its 
meaning had only too surely pene- 
trated to her. 

Should the worst have happened.” 

Oh, but — papa — ^you are getting 
better !” 

She checked the wailing tone ; she 
remembered how necessary, as she 
had been warned, was calmness in 
that room ; she remembered her prom- 
ise to maintain it. She pressed her 
hands upon her bosom and remained 
still. 

I will take that draught now, 
Sara, if you’ll pour it out.” 

She rose from her seat, undid the 
paper, poured the contents of the 
small bottle into the glass, and banded 
it to him. The doctor drank it, and 
gave her back the glass with a smile. 

Not one of those clever fellows 
thought of ordering me this ; yet it’s 
the best thing for anybody suffering 
as I am. Ah ! they have got some- 
thing to learn yet. I don’t know how 
they’ll get on without me.” 

Papa, you may get well yet 1” she 
interrupted ; and she could not pre- 
vent the anguished sound with which 
the words were spoken. 

He turned and looked at her ; he 
seemed to have fallen into a momen- 
tary reverie. But he made no direct 
answer. 

Can you draw the table away, 
Sara ? I don’t want it so close now. 
Gently; take care of the lamp.” 

“ Where shall I put this, papa ?” 
she asked, referring to the letter. 

In my desk in the next room. 
You’ll know where to find it in case 
of need. My keys are here, on the 
mantel-piece.” 

She stopped to ask one question 
which seemed to be wrung from her 
in her pain. Is it to go all the 
same if you g^t better, papa ?” 


No. Not if I get better.” 

Passing into the other room, which 
was lighted only by the fire, she drew 
the desk from underneath the table, 
knelt down, unlocked it, and put in 
the letter. It was addressed : For 
my son, Edward Davenal.” Sara was 
locking the desk again, when some 
one entered the room and came round 
the table to where she knelt. 

My goodness ! are you saying 
your prayers ?” 

Wrapped in silks and ermine, her 
lovely face peeping out from a charm- 
ing pink bonnet, was Mrs. Cray. 
The doctor had expressed a wish to 
Mark Cray that afternoon that Caro- 
line would come to him, and Mark 
had delivered the message when he 
got home. 

Mark says Uncle Richard wants 
to see me,” she explained, “so I 
thought I’d run down at once. I 
can’t stop; Berry and another friend 
or two are going to dine with us. [ 
am so delighted to hear of the im- 
provement in Uncle Richard ! Mark 
says the danger is quite over.” 

“If I could but be sure it was I” 
was Sara’s answer. 

“There you are, with your doubts 
and fears 1 Never was anybody like 
you, Sara. Don’t I tell you "Mark 
says it ? Yes, I’ll take my cloak off 
for the few minutes that I stop.” 

She threw off her bonnet, and let 
the cloak slip from her shoulders, dis- 
playing her evening attire, for she 
had dressed before she came out : a 
silk, so light as to look almost white, 
that stood on end with richness and 
rustled as she walked ; the dazzling 
necklace, given by Captain Davenal, 
on her white neck; a dew-dropped 
pink rose in her gleaming hair. 

Utterly unaccordant looked she 
with the chamber of the dying, as 
she stepped into the other room. Dr. 
Davenal’s eyes were fixed on her for 
a moment in simple wonder, as if he 
saw a vision. Then he recognized 
her, and held out his hand, a glad 
look pervading his countenance. 

“Well, Uncle Richard! I am so 
rejoiced that you are getting better. 


192 


OSWALD CRAY. 


YouHl come and dance at our house- 
warming yet.’’ 

“ Are you going to hold one ?” 
asked the doctor, as he held her hand 
in his, and gazed up at her beauty. 

“Mark and I are thinking of it. 
We can do every thing, you know, now 
that money’s coming to me.” 

“ Ah,” said the doctor, “it’s about 
that money I want to talk to you. Sit 
down, Caroline. How smart you are, 
my dear !” 

“ Yay, I think it’s you who are 
smart, uncle,” she returned with a gay 
laugh. “ So it has come into use at 
last !” 

Caroline touched the dressing-gown 
as she spoke. There had always been 
a joke about this dressing-gown. A 
patient of the doctor’s, as fanciful as 
Lady Oswald, and nearly as old, had 
made it with her own hands and sent 
it to him. It had remained unused. 
For one tiling, the doctor was too plain 
in his habits, and too busy a man, to 
require a dressing-gown at all ; for 
another, he had looked upon the gar- 
ment as extravagantly fine. 

“ Yes,” said he, in answer to Caro- 
Jine’s remark, “ 1 have found it useful 
to-day. It is very warm and comfort- 
able. Caroline, I have been talking 
again to Mark about the monev.” 

“Well, uncle?” 

“ I don't know that it is well. Mark 
does not appear inclined to make me 
any promise that it shall be settled 
upon you when it comes. I urged it 
upon him very strongly this afternoon, 
and he answered me in his light care- 
less manner, ‘ Of course. Oh yes, 
doctor. I’ll remember ;’ but he did not 
give a specific promise — whether by 
accident or design I cannot say. So I 
told him to send you down to me.” 

“ Yes, uncle,” she said, thinking 
more of the weakness of the voice to 
which she was listening than of the 
import of the words. 

“ This money must be settled upon 
you, Caroline, tiic instant that you 
touch it. It is essential that a married 
woman should, if possible, have some 
settlement. If I recover I shall take 
care that this is so settled, but ” 


“ If you recover !” she interrupted. 
“Why, Uncle Richard, you are getting 
well as fast as you can. Mark says 
so. You are sitting up !” 

“ Trufe ; I am sitting up ; and I 
could not have sat up two or three 
days ago. Still, I am not sure about 
the getting well.” 

“ But Mark says so; he says you 
are,” reiterated Caroline. 

“ And Mark’s opinion, as a medical 
man, must be infallible, you think,” 
rejoined the doctor, with a momentary 
look in his face that Caroline did not 
understand. “At any rate, my dear, 
it is well to remember all contingen- 
cies. ‘ Hope for the best, and prepare 
for the worst,’ was one of your Grand- 
papa Davenal’s favorite maxims. You 
must have the money settled upon 
you ” 

“ But, Uncle Richard, are you quite 
sure that would be for the best ?’’ she 
interposed. “ If the hioney is settled 
in that way, it would be all tied up, 
and do us no good after all.” 

“ You would enjoy the interest.” 

“ That’s not over much,” said Caro- 
line slightingly. “I and Mark have 
been planning a hundred things that 
we might do with the money. Re- 
furnish the abbey splendidly for one.” 

“You and Mark are a (?ouple of 
simpletons,” retorted the doctor, sud- 
denly regaining his energy of voice. 
But the effort was too much, and he 
lay panting for several minutes after- 
wards. Caroline sat gazing at him, 
her finger unconsciously raised to her 
neck, playing Avith the gleaming toy 
tliere. Which should she trust to, 
those signs of illness, or Mark’s 
opinion ? 

“ Caroline, I insist that the money 
be settled upon you. AYere you and 
Mark to Avaste it in nonsense, it would 
bo nothing less than a fraud ujion your 
West Indian relatives from Avhom it is 
derived. You may tell Mark so from 
me. That money, Carine, secured to 
you, Avould at least keep the Avolf from 
coming quite inr^^hould he ever ap- 
p roach y o u r d o o r . ” 

Caroline sat aghast, AA^ondering 
whether the doctor had loftt his senses. 


OSWALD CRAY. 


193 


The wolf at the door for us, Uncle 
Richard 1 As if that could ever be 

Ah, Carine, I have lived to know 
that there is no permanent certainty in 
the brightest lot,’^ he answered with a 
sigh. My dear, more experience 
has been forced upon me in the past 
year or two, than I had learnt in the 
whole course of my previous life. 
Understand me once for all, this money 
must be secured to you.” 

Yery well. Uncle Richard,” she 
answered with ready acquiescence. 

It shall be so, as you seem so much 
to wish it. I’ll tell Mark all you 
say.” 

She rose as she spoke. Dr. Dave- 
nal was rather surprised that she 
should be going again so very soon, 
and looked inquiringly at her. Can’t 
you stay a little longer, Caroline ?” 

I wish I could ; but I shall hardly 
get back to dinner, and we expect 
some friends to-day. Good-night, 
Uncle Richard.” 

He drew her face down to his, mur- 
muring his farewell. Little did Caro- 
line Cray think it would be his last. 

Sara went out with her cousin, and 
saw her depart with the servant who 
had waited for her. When she re- 
turned to the chamber, the doctor was 
in deep thought. 

“ I think you must bring the table 
near to me again, Sara,” he said. 

There’s another word or two I should 
like to write.” 

Yes, papa. Do you want Ed- 
ward’s letter ?” 

‘‘ No, no ; it’s not to him. There. 
Dip the pen in the ink for me.” 

It was a tacit confession of weak- 
ness that she did not like to hear ; and 
she saw that even in the short space 
of time that had elapsed since he 
wrote before, his strength had visibly 
declined. He was scarcely able to 
guide the pen. 

That will do,” he said, when he 
had traced a few lines. ** Sara, should 
you have occasion to send this, inclose 
it in a note from yourself, explaining 
my state when I penned it ; that I 
was almost past writing. Will you 
remember ?” 

12 


**Yes, papa,” she answered, her 
heart beating painfully at the words. 

Fold it for me.” 

Honorable in all her thoughts and 
actions, Sara folded the note with the 
writing turned from her. It is just 
possible some children might have 
been sufficiently actuated by curiosity 
to glance at least at the name at the 
commencement of the note. Not so 
Sara Davenal. She placed it in an 
envelope and fastened it down. 

^*1 think I can direct it, Sara. 
Just the name.” 

She gave him the pen, and he 
traced the name in uneven, doubtful 
letters. Sara noted it with surprise, 
and perhaps her pulses quickened. 

Oswald Cray, Esquire.” 

** Put it in my desk with Edward’s, 
my dear. If you have occasion to 
send the one, you will the other.” 

As she unlocked the desk again, 
her tears were raining down fast. In 
all that her father was saying and 
doing there seemed to be a foreshad- 
owing in his own mind of his ap- 
proaching death. She quitted the 
rooms for a few minutes, that her 
emotion might spend itself, and in the 
hall encountered her aunt going to 
the dinner. Miss Bettina appeared 
to assume that Sara had come forth 
for the same purpose. 

Oh I I am glad you are going to 
take some dinner to-day. Fasting is 
not good for you, Sara.” 

Sara mechanically followed her 
aunt into the dining-room. But she 
did not take her seat. She stood by the 
fire and leaned her elbow on the man- 
tel-piece. Miss Bettina looked round 
and detected the traces of her emotion. 

** Why ! what’s the matter ?” 

Sara cleared her throat and strove 
to clear her face. ‘‘Papa seems to 
me worse. Aunt Bettina.” 

“Worse!” echoed Miss Bettina. 
“ Is he worse ? In what way ? Neal. 
she added, turning to the man, “you 
told me your master was better this 
evening 1” 

“He seems a great deal better, 
ma’am,” was Neal’s answer. “He 
has been writing.” 


194 


OSWALD CRAY. 


Miss Bettina looked from one to 
1 he other. Which was right ? Sara 
explained. 

“ Of course he is better than he was 
some days ago,” said Sara. “ That 
is, better in one sense. But he seems 
low this evening : as if there were an 
impression on his own mind that he 
shall not get well.” 

Seems what ?” cried Miss Bettina, 
bending her ear. *^Low? Well, 
what else would you have him be ? 
You canT expect one who has come 
out of the dangerous illness that your 
papa has, to be in all the high feather 
of rude health. What has h^e had ?” 

** Watton brought him some jelly 
an hour ago". He has just taken a 
draught now ; something he sent for 
from the chemist’s.” 

Are you not going to sit down ?” 

'‘No, aunt, I can’t take dinner to- 
day. I shall have some tea with papa 
presently.” 

Miss Bettina gave utterance to a 
slight reprimand on the sin of fasting 
and grieving when there was no cause 
for it. Sara listened a little while, 
and then left the room. Miss Bettina 
who was going on tranquilly enough 
with her dinner, suddenly grew un- 
easy. 

Neal ! there is no cause for Miss 
Sara’s low spirits, I suppose ?” 

"None whatever that I can see, 
ma’am. If my master were worse, he 
would not continue to sit up. ” 

But, somehow. Miss Bettina had 
taken a doubt into her mind, and could 
not get it out again. She laid down 
her knife and fork, and walked across 
the hall to the doctor’s chamber. He 
had fallen into a doze when left alone 
by Sara, his head lying uncomfortably 
on the pillow of his chair. The soft 
rustling of Miss Bettina’s sweeping 
silks aroused him. She went up and 
took his hand. 

" Richard, how are you to-night ?” 

" I hardly know. Middling.” 

. " Sara is fancying you are not so 
well.” • 

" Is she ?” 

" But she was always given to 
fancies, you know. Is it right you 


should sit up so long the first time of 
leaving your bed ?” 

“ Yes, I like the change. I was 
tired of bed. Sit down, Bettina. 
There are one or two things 1 want 
to say to you.” 

She had not finished her dinner, but 
she was quite ready to wait with him. 
Something in* his aspect had struck 
upon her unpleasantly, and she began 
to see the untruth of Neal’s words 
that he was better. 

One word, Richard. Are you 
finding yourself worse ?” 

" Bettina, I have not been better.” 

"The doctors have thought you 
so,” she said, after a pause. 

" Ay, but I know more of my own 
state than they can tell me. "When 
the suffering and its signs passed, 
they leaped to the conclusion that the 
disease had left me. In a measure, 
so it has, but they should have re- 
membered in how many of such cases 
the apparent improvement is all deceit, 
the forerunner of the end.” 

Bettina Davenal fully understood 
the words and what they implied. But 
she was not a demonstrative woman, 
and -the rubbing together of her white 
and somewhat bony hands was the 
sole sign of the inward aching heart, 

" And I am thankful for the im- 
provement,” added the doctor. " It 
IS not all who are permitted this free- 
dom from pain in their dying hours.” 

" O Richard ! is there no hope ?” 

" I fear not,” he gravely answ’ered. 
" I am accustomed to impress upon 
my patients the great truth that while 
there is life there is hope, and I should 
be worse that a heathen to ignore it 
in my own case. But, all I can say 
is, I cannot trust to it.” 

She had laid one of her hands upon 
the folds of the dressing-gown and 
the doctor could feel the twjtching of 
the fingers. He had asked her to 
sit down, but she preferred to stand. 
Close to him, with her head bent, she 
could hear his low words without 
much misapprehension, so deliberately 
were they spoken between the pant- 
ing breath. 

" Bettina, I don’t go to my grave as 


OSWALD CRAY. 


195 


« 

I thought I should have gone, provid- 
ing for my children. I have been ob- 
liged to sacrifice all I had put by. It 
was not a great deal, it’s true, for I am 
but what’s called a middle-aged man, 
and my expenses have been high. 
Could I have foreseen my early death, 
I should have lived at half the rate. 
And this sacrifice will not die with 
me. The house — I dare say I shall 
shock you, Bettina — is mortgaged ; 
not, however, to its full value. I haye 
directed in my will that it shall be 
sold ; and the residue, after the mort- 
gage is paid — can you hear me ?” he 
broke off to ask. 

'' Every word.” 

The residue and the proceeds of 
the furniture, and those two small cot- 
tages of mine, and other effects which 
will be likewise sold, will make a fair 
sum. There’s money owing to me in 
the town, too. Altogether I expect 
there will not be much less than three 
thousand pounds ” 

Richard !” shrieked out Miss Bet- 
tina, in her emotion. Three thou- 
sand 1 I thought you were worth 
ten at least.” 

No, it was not so much as that, 
altogether. I had four or five thou- 
sand put by. Never mind : I say I 
have had to sacrifice it. I feel how 
imprudent I have been, now that it is 
too late.” 

‘‘To what have you had to sacrifice 
it?” 

The doctor paused before he replied. 
“ A sudden claim came upon me of 
which I knew nothing : a claim for 
thousands. No, Bettina, I know what 
you wish to say — believe me, I could 
not resist it : to pay it was obligatory. 
The worst is, I could not pay it all, 
and the sum which the property will 
realize will have to be applied to 
liquidate it.” 

“But you can tell me what the 
claim was for ?” 

“ No, I cannot. It is not altogether 
my secret, Bettina, and you must not 
inquire into it. I need not have men- 
tioned it at all to you, but for speaking 
of Sara. My poor children must suffer. 


Edward has his pay, and he will have 
to make it suffice : Sara has nothing. 
Bettina, you will give her a home ?” 

“ There’s no necessity for you to 
ask it,” was Bettina Davenal’s answer. 
But she spoke crossly ; for the want 
of confidence in not intrusting to her 
the nature of this secret, was hurting 
her feelings bitterly. “ Should any 
thing happen to you, Sara will na- 
turally find a home with me — if she 
can put up with its plainness. I shall 
make her as welcome, and consider it 
as obligatory on me to do so, as 
though she were my own child.” 

The doctor lay back for a moment 
in his chair, panting. His fingers 
clasped themselves over hers in token 
of thanks. 

“Richard, surely you might place 
more confidence in me 1 If you have 
been called upon to pay this mioney in 
consequence of — of any bygone trou- 
ble or debt contracted in your youth — • 
and I conclude it must be something 
of that sort — dq you suppose I cannot 
be true and keep your counsel ? I 
know what follies the young plunge 
into !” 

‘♦Follies ? Crimes, rather !” And 
the words broke from Dr. Davenal 
with a groan which told of the deepest 
mental anguish. It pained even the 
dull ear that was bent to it. 

“ Bettina, I say that you must not 
ask me. If it concerned myself alone 
you should know as much as I do, but 
I could not tell you without betraying 
another; and — and — there might be 
danger. Let it rest. Better for you 
that it should be so, for it would dis- 
turb your peace as it has disturbed 
mine. ” 

“It’s a dreadful sum,” said Miss 
Bettina. 

“ It is that. And my poor children 
must be left beggars. I have enjoined 
Mark Cray to pay three hundred 
pounds yearly to Sara for five years, 
out of the proceeds of the practice. 
He can well afford to do it : and if 
you will give her a home, this had 
better be invested for her, Bettina.” 

“ Of course. But what’s three him- 


196 


OSWALD CRAY. 


dred for fire years ? You might make 
better terms with Mark Cray than 
that.^’ 

‘‘Mark has promised faithfully to 
do it I have been talking with him 
this afternoon about that and other 
things. I asked him what sum he 
would feel inclined to pay to Sara out 
of the business, and for what term. 
He said he thought he could give 
three hundred a year, and would con- 
tinue it for five years.” 

“ Considering all things, it is not a 
very generous offer,” persisted Miss 
Bettina. “ Had your life been spared, 
Mark could not have expected to step 
into the whole of the practice these 
twenty years.” 

“It is very fair, I think, Bettina. 
Mark must acquire experience, re- 
member, must work his way up to 
the public confidence, before people 
trust him as they have trusted me. 
He will not have his rooms filled daily 
with patients at a guinea a head. 
This has come upon me suddenly, or 
all things might have been managed 
differently. I think it would be a 
good plan for Mark to leave the abbey 
for this house; I have told him so ; 
but he will be the best judge of that.” 

Miss Bettina quitted her stooping 
posture by the doctor and sat down, 
revolving all that had been said. She 
sat slowly rubbing her hands the one 
over the over, as was her habit when 
any thing troubled her. 

“ I cannot realize it,” she said, in a 
half whisper, “I cannot realize it. 
Surely you are not going from us !” 

“I am but going to those who have 
preceded me, Bettina,” he answered. 
“My wife, and Richard, and others, 
who have gone on before, are waiting 
for me, and I in my turn shall wait 
for you. This fretting life is over. 
How poor I — how poor /” he added 
more emphatically, as he clasped his 
hands — “do even its best interests 
now seem beside eternity I” 


CHAPTER XXYIII. 

LAST HOURS. 

The lamp was placed on a chest of 
drawers behind the chair of Dr. Dave- 
nal. It was getting on for ten o^clock. 
Quite time, as had been suggested to 
him, that he should be in bed ; but he 
appeared unwilling to move. He felt 
easy, he said : and therefore he stayed 
on. 

The flickering light of the fire, now 
burning with a dull red heat, now 
bursting up into a blaze, threw its 
rays upon the chamber — destined, 
ere that night should close, to be a 
chamber of death, although they, the 
watchers, as yet suspected it not. 
The light fell upon the simple bed at 
the far corner, destitute of hangings — 
for the doctor was a foe to curtains, 
upon the dwarf cabinet beside it, 
whose lower shelves inclosed a few 
choice books, upon the drawers, upon 
the dressing table at the farther win- 
dow, and upon the open space at this 
end where the fire was. The light fell 
on the doctor as he lay back in his 
gaudy dressing-gown on the chair- 
pillow, one hand hanging down list- 
lessly, the other fondly resting on the 
soft brown hair of his daughter. 

She sat on a footstool by his side, 
nestled close to him. Her head bowed 
down, for she had much ado to con- 
ceal and subdue her emotion, her hands 
clasped and laid upon his knee. The 
dread fear that he was dying lay upon 
her heart ; had come to it, as it seemed, 
by intuition. Not a word yet of this 
ominous dread had been spoken be- 
tween them : each seemed to shrink 
from his task. But Sara strove to 
gather courage and strength, so that 
in his presence she might at least not 
give way. 

The doctor stretched out his disen- 
gaged hand and pointed to a china 
cup that stood on the table. Sara 


OSWALD CRAY. 


197 


rose and brought it to him, and he 
took a few spoonfuls of the refresh- 
ment it contained. 

Is not the fire getting low, my 
dear he asked with a slight shiver. 

She rose and stirred it, and brought 
forward the coal box and put on fresh 
coal, and then took the hearth brush 
and swept the bars and the hearth, 
making things comfortable. 

Do you feel cold, papa 

** I think so,” he answered with 
another shiver. 

** I am sure you would be better in 
bed. Shall I call Neal 

** Not yet. Come and sit down 
again.” 

She took her place, nestling to him 
as before, and he fondly stroked her 
head with his feeble hand. It seemed 
to her that the hand grew feebler with 
every change, every fresh movement. 

“ I have a few things to say to you, 
my dear, and I had better say them 
now. I should not like to go to sleep 
with them unspoken.” 

Did he mean the sleep of death ? 
Sara trembled inwardly: she hoped 
tliat she should retain sufficient 
strength, no matter at what cost to 
her feelings, not to tremble outwardly. 

It was necessary that I should 
make a fresh will,” he began after a 

pause. “ In the old will ” 

Oh papa I surely you are not 
going from me !” 

Utterly unnerved, the words had 
broken from her in her misery. Dr. 
Davenal resumed in a tender, reason- 
ing accent. ^ 

I must have you brave, darling ; 
Just for a short while. Won^t you 
try and be so ? You see I have 
only you to speak to, Edward being 
away. My strength may not last very 
long.” 

She understood him : that his 
strength might not hold out if she 
hindered him by giving way to emo- 
tion. The precious time ! not much 
of it might be left to them. With a 
mighty effort of will, with an an- 
guished sigh to heaven for help, Sara 
Davenal outwardly grew still and 
caluL 


** Tell me all you have to tell, papa. 

I will try and be to you what Edward 
would have been.” 

'' In the old will, made subsequent 
to the death of Richard, the chief 
part of what I had to leave was 
divided equally between you and 
Edward. Caroline — but it matters 
not to speak of her. In this new 
will, made now since this illness, all 
I die possessed of is bequeathed to 
you.” 

** To me I” she echoed, the injustice 
of the thing striking on her mind in 
the first blush of the words. 

Do you think, after what has hap- 
pened, that Edward could have any 
right to it ?” 

She was silent. That there was ter- 
rible trouble connected with Edward 
Davenal she had not now to learn. 
The doctor lay still for a few moments 
to gather breath. His voice was so 
weak that she could barely catch some 
of the words. 

When Edward brought that ill upon 
us, which has gone well nigh to kill 
me — which I believe in a measure has 
killed me, in so far as that it rendered 
my state of mind and body such that 
I have been unable to fight against 
what might otherwise have proved but 
a slight disorder — when he brought it 
upon us, I say, I had only one way 
open to me — to sacrifice my property 
and save him. All fathers might not 
have done it, though most would : but 
I believe few fathers love their chil- 
dren as I have loved mine. But to 
save him, I had not only to sacrifice 
my property but also in a measure to 
sacrifice you.” 

Papa,” she said, lifting her head, 

I wish I might ask you something.” 

Well — do so.” 

If you would but trust me more • 
entirely. When Edward came that 
night and you called me down, I 
learnt that he was in some dangerous 
trouble ; but I learnt no further. 
Since then nothing but fears have 
haunted me.” 

** And have they not haunted me ?” 
echoed the doctor in a strange tone 
of pain. *^The night stands out in 


198 


OSWALD CRAY. 


my memory like a frightful dream. 
Think what it was. When I was 
lingering in that front room there, full 
of the trouble brought on me by the 
death of Lady Oswald, not yet cold, 
there came a tapping at the window, 
and I looked out and saw Edward. 
Edward my son I — disguised, as may 
almost be said, for he did not care to 
be recognized in Hallingham ; and in 
truth recognition might have been dan- 
gerous. ' Let me in quietly, father,^ 
he said, ^ I am in danger.^ Sara, were 
I to live to be an old man, I could not 
forget the effect these words had upon 
me. I was unnerved that evening : 
the recent death of Lady Oswald and 
— and — its unhappy circumstances 
were as vividly before me as though 
it was being enacted then, and I was 
unnerved to a degree not usual. He 
wore a cap on his head, and a plaid 
scarf very much up about bis neck, in 
fact just as any gentleman might 
travel, but I had not been accustomed 
to see Edward so dressed. His voice, 
too, was hushed to a warning tone. 
‘ Let me in quietly, father. I am in 
danger.^ In the first confused mo- 
ment I declare I thought of some 
threatened danger in the street — that 
some wild animal was running loose : 
strange ideas do occur to one in these 
sudden moments. I let him in, and 
he began hurriedly to tell me that he 
did not want his visit to be known, 
for be was absent from quarters with- 
out leave ; nay, in defiance of leave, 
which had been denied to him as in- 
convenient to be granted in the hur- 
ried period of the regiment^s depart- 
ure. But he was compelled to see 
me, he continued, and — then — he told 
me all.^^ 

** Told you what, papa ?” she whis- 
pered, when the doctors moan of rem- 
iniscence had died away. 

Of the awful position into which 
his folly had plunged him. Of the 
crime that he had committed, and 
which, if not hushed up, bought up, 
one may say, would in a few days 
find him out. Sara, Sara ! men have 
been hung for that same crime in days 
not so long gone by,’^ 


He, the unhappy father, stopr^fT to 
wipe from his face the dews tliui iiad 
gathered there. It was an awful tale 
for a father to tell ; it was more awful 
for him to have heard it. Sara 
shivered : she did not dare to interrupt 
by a single word. 

My gallant son, of whom I had 
been so proud ! Youth ^s follies had 
been his in plenty ; vanity, extrava- 
gance, expenditure, bringing debt in 
their train, which I had satisfied, more 
than once, over and above the hand- 
some allowance I made him. But 
crime, never. Sara, when that night 
was over, I felt that I would rather 
die than live it over again, with its 
sudden lifting of the curtain to pain 
and shame. 

Papa, if 

Hush, child ! Let me finish this 
part while I can speak. He confessed 
all in its fullest extent. The ic^ once 
broken, he told the whole. Indeed, 
he had no choice but to tell it, for it 
was only by knowing it entirely that 
I could help him. Had he concealed 
the half of it he might as well have 
concealed the whole : and he might 
have stood at his country's bar to 
answer for bis crime. 

Sara gave a great cry. Terrible as 
her vague doubts had been, pointing 
sometimes to the very darkest sin that 
is comprised in the Decalogue, the 
one which Oswald Cray had even 
dared to whisper in her ear, it was so 
much worse to hear those doubts coir- 
firmed. 

‘‘At bis country's bar 

“ Child, yes. Don^t I tell yon 
what the punishment would have been 
for it not many years ago ? What 
could I do but save him ? Had it 
been necessary to part with every 
stick and stone I possessed in the 
world, I must have parted with them 
— any thing, every thing, so as to save 
him. I told him what I would do ; 
that I would start before morning-light 
— for speed was necessary — and get 
to London and stop the danger. On 
his part he bad to go back by the 
train that passes through here at mid- 
night, and so get into quarters by the 


OSWALD CRAY. 


199 


morrow, that his absence might not be 
known. Before he went he begged 
to see you. I think that he then — 
Sara, I thinl it now, and have for 
some little time — that he then had 
made up his mind not to come down 
again : or else he fancied that he 
should not be able to come. However 
that may have been, he begged to see 
you ; and I seeing I must confess no 
reason for it, called you down. And 
the rest you know.” 

“ I don’t know one thing,” she 
whispered. ^‘Papa, I don’t know 
what it was — the crime.” 

^‘And better that you should not,” 
he answered with a vehemence sur- 
prising in his weak state. “ I would 
not have adverted to it at all, but for 
what I have to explain to you. Listen, 
Sara, for there are directions that I 
must give you now.” 

Pausing, he held his hand up for an 
instant as if to bespeak her attention, 
and then resumed. 

I shall startle you if I say that 
the money I was called upon to find 
was no less than eight thousand 
pounds. Ah ! you may well lift your 
head, child I And this imprudent, 
sinful mail was your brother and my 
son, and heaven only knows how 
dearly I love him still ! Five thou- 
sand of it I paid at once, and the rest 
I arranged to pay later, at different 
periods. This very Christmas, I have 
paid another five hundred, leaving two 
thousand five hundred yet to pay. I 
have directed that whatever I die 
possessed of shall be sold, and the 
money paid over to you, ‘ my daugh- 
ter, Sara Davenal.’ The terms of th6 
will may excite curiosity ; people will 
marvel why I did not appoint trus- 
tees ; and you, my darling, must be 
content to let them marvel. The res- 
idue, after my debts are paid, will 
be, as I judge, about three thousand 
pounds. And of this, Sara, two 
thousand five hundred must be given 
to these people, who hold Edward’s 
safety in their hands.” 

Again she was startled. ** Do they 
hold it still ?” 

They do. They hold his — I may 


almost say life — in their hands. Once 
they are paid, the danger will have 
passed. You will make no unneces- 
sary delay ?” 

No,” she said with a shudder. 
The very hour the money is in my 
hands it shall be paid to them.!’ 

'' In my desk, in the private com- 
partment, you will find a sealed paper 
addressed to yourself. It contains ffill 
directions, how you must accomplish 
this, and who the parties are. I 
thought it well to write this down for 
yjou, that so there might be no mistake 
or forgetfulness. Inside this paper 
you will find a letter addressed to 
these people, and that I wish you to 
post with your own hands , — with 
your own hands ! — within four-and- 
twenty hours after my death.' Do you 
clearly understand ?” 

Yes, she clearly understood, she 
answered ; answered from the depths 
of her quivering heart. 

And I think that is all, so far as 
that unhappy business is concerned. 
Oh my child, my child I if I could but 
have left you better off 1” 

^‘Papa, dont grieve for that!” she 
said in the midst of her choking sobs. 
I shall do very well.” 

^'You will have your home with 
your aunt. And Mark Cray is to pay 
you a certain sum for five years, which 
must be invested for you. Bettina 
will take care of you : but she is not 
of a cheering temper. If I could but 
have left you in a happier home 1” 
Looking forward, she felt that all 
homes would be pretty much alike to 
her with her load of grief and care. 
Surely the sorrows of life had fallen 
upon her early ! 

“ I began to think, just about the 
time of Caroline’s marriage, or a little 
before it, that Oswald Cray was grow- 
ing to like you very much,” resumed 
Dr. Davenal. ^'But it may have been 
only my own fancy. I was mistaken 
with regard to him once before ; per- 
haps 1 also was again. ” 

She sat silent, her head down, the 
fingers of her hands nervously en- 
twining themselves one within the 
other. 


200 


OSWALD CRAY. 


“You don’t answer me, Sara. It 
may be the last time I shall ask you 
any thing.” 

“ It is all oyer, papa,” she said, lift- 
ing her streaming eyes. 

“ Then there was 1 What has 
ended it ?” 

Ought she to tell him ? Gould she 
tell him ? Would it be right or wise 
to do so — to increase the sense of ill 
wrought by her unhappy brother, al- 
ready lying with so bitter a weight, 
in spite of his love, on Dr. DavenaPs 
spirit ? No, she thought she ought 
not. Her sense of right as well as 
her reticence of feeling shrunk from 
the task. 

“ Child, have you no answer for 
me ?” 

“ Something — unpleasant — arose 
between us,” she said, in a faltering 
whisper. “ And so we parted. It 
was neither his fault nor mine : it — 
it was the fault of circumstances.” 

“Ah I” said the doctor, “a foolish 
quarrel. But I had thought both of 
you superior to it. Should the cloud 
ever pass away and he wish to make 
you his wife, remember that you have 
my full and free approbation — that 
my blessing would go with it. In 
spite of his pride and his caprice, I 
like Oswald Cray.” 

“ It never will pass away,” she in- 
terrupted, almost with vehemence. 
“ It is a thing impossible. We have 
bidden adieu to all that forever.” 

“ Well, you know best. I only 
say, if it should be. Is it this that 
has kept him from the house ?” 

“ Yes. Oh, papa, when you were 
blaming him for taking foolish and 
unjust offence against Lady Oswald’s 
will, I wished you could have known 
what a mistake it was.” 

“ And, Sara, I have urged on Caro- 
line, as you heard me, that that money 
should be secured to herself. I have 
spoken to your aunt ; I have written 
of it to Mr. Oswald Cray — for that is 
the purport of my note to him. My 
dear, do you reiterate the same to 
them by word of mouth ; and say 
that I urged it again with my dying 
breath. I don’t know why the ne- 


cessity for this should cling to my 
mind so strongly,” he continued in a 
dreamy tone. “ Ilnless it is because 
I dreamt a night or two ago that 
Mark had run through all his means 
and Caroline was lying in some strange 
place, ill, and in grievous poverty. 
It was a vivid dream ; and is as 
present to me now as it was when I 
dreamt it.” 

Sara pressed her hands upon her 
face. The effort to sustain her calm- 
ness was getting beyond her strength. 

“ Say that I urged it again with my 
dying breath ! And give my love to 
the two little boys, Sara. Tell them 
that Uncle Richard would have sent 
for them to take a last farewell, had 
death not come upon him so suddenly. 
But there’s no time ; and tell them 
we shall meet again in that far-off 
land, when their toils and mine shall 
be alike over. Charge them to be 
ever working on for it.” 

She could not contain herself longer. 
Her very heart was breaking. And 
she turned with choking sobs, and hid 
her face upon his breast. 

“ Don’t, my darling ! Don’t grieve 
hopelessly. It is God’s will to take 
me, arid therefore we should not sor- 
row as those without hope. I have 
tried of late to live very near Him, to 
resign myself to Him in all things. 
My life had become one long weary 
trouble, Sara — perhaps He is taking 
me from it in love.” 

“ 0 papa I But I shall be left !” 

“Ah, child, but you are young ; 
life for you is only in its morning, and 
though clouds have gathered over- 
bead, they may clear away again, 
leaving only brightness behind them. 
Think what it has been for me I To 
wake, from troubled sleep in a night 
of pain, to the dread that ere the day 
closed the name of my only remain- 
ing son might be in the mouths of 
men — a felon 1 Child, no wonder 
that I am dying.” 

Sara could not speak. She lifted 
her arm and let it fall across him. 
Dr. Davenal laid his hand lovingly on 
the bowed head. 

“ Yes, I am resigned to die. I 


OSWALD CRAY. 


201 


would have lived on longer if I could ; 
but that is denied me, and God has 
reconciled me to the decree. When 
you shall come to be as old as I am, 
Sara, you will have learnt how full of 
mercy are the darkest troubles, if we 
will but open our eyes to look for it.” 

Sara Davenal, in her keen distress, 
could not see where the mercy lay for 
her. To lose her father, seemed to 
be the very consummation of all 
earthly misery. How many more of 
us have so felt when stern death was 
taking one we loved better than life I 
, ^'l am so glad I gave that money 
of Lady Oswald^s back to the right- 
ful owners I” he resumed, after a 
pause. It has brought its comfort 
to me now. I am glad, too, that I 
have lived to see them in possession 
of it ; that no vexatious delays were 
made to intervene. Had it not been 
settled before I died, there’s no know- 
ing what might hare arisen. Sara, 
remember that our past acts find us 
out on our dying bed. Whether they 
have been good or evil, they come 
home to us then.” 

‘'Papa, you have ever been good;” 
she said, amidst her raining tears. 
“ None but good acts can come home 
to you.” 

“Child, what are you saying? 
What are wo all in the sight of God ? 
We can but cling to Him, and plead 
our -Saviour’s sacrifice.” 

His voice had grown so faint that 
it was more by guessing than by 
hearing that she understood the 
words. Presently she looked up and 
saw that his eyes were closed ; but 
his lips were in motion, and she 
thought he was praying. She began 
to wish he would get into bed, but 
when she attempted to move, his 
hand tightened around her. 

“ No ; stay where you are. God 
bless you ! God bless you always, 
my child I” 

She remained on as before, her 
cheek resting on the dressing-gown. 
Presently Miss Bettina eame in. 

“It is the most wrong thing for 
you to sit up like this, Richard !” 
fihe was beginning, when she caught 


sight of his closed eyes. “ Is he 
asleep, Sara ? How could you let 
him go to sleep in this chair ? He 
ought What’s the matter ?” 

Miss Bettina — calm, cold, impassive 
Miss Bettina — broke off with a shriek 
as she spoke the last words. She 
went closer to him and touched his 
forehead. 

Sara rose ; and a bewildering look 
of hopeless terror took possession of 
her own face as she saw that white 
one lying there. Richard Davenal 
had passed to his rest. 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

SORROW. 

To describe the sorrow, the conster- 
nation that fell on all Hallingham in 
the loss of Dr. Davenal, would be a 
fruitless task. People could not believe 
that he was really dead. It had been 
asserted that the danger was past, and 
he was getting better rapidly. They 
looked at each other in a bewildered 
sort of way, and asked what he had 
died of? Of a neglected cold, was 
the answer of those who knew best, 
or supposed they knew — the medical 
body of Hallingham. And indeed 
there was little doubt that they were 
correct : the immediate malady which 
had deprived the town of that valuable 
life, was a very simple thing — a cold, 
neglected at the beginning. 

Sara Davenal was stunned : stunned 
with the weight of the calamity, with 
the grief it brought. And yet it prob- 
ably fell upon her with less startling 
intensity than it would have done had 
she been in the full suntide of pros- 
pei'ity. She had been recently living 
in nothing but sorrow. The grief and 
terror brought to her * by that night’s 
unhappy secret (which you now know 
was connected with her brother) had 
been succeeded by the withdrawal of 
the friendship — to call it by a light 
name — of Oswald Cray. She had be- 
lieved that the world could bring no 


202 


OSWALD CRAY. 


other calamity that could add to her 
misery : she had not thought of that 
most grievous one — a father’s death. 

In all pain there must be a reaction. 
The very violence of the first grief 
induces it; and it came sooner to 
Sara Davenal than it does to most 
sufferers. Or, it may be, that the 
real nature of the grief brought its 
own effects. Had it been simple 
mourning alone, the natural sorrow 
for the loss of a good and loving 
father, she might have gone on weep- 
ing for months : but there was behind 
it that heritage of terror on her 
brother’s account, there was the con- 
sciousness that with her the heavy 
secret was left, and also the completion 
of its purchase. The blinding tears 
ceased, the lively grief settled down 
into one long, inward, dull agony ; 
and ere many days went over, she 
had become, in manner, almost un- 
naturally cold and calm. How well 
his daughter bears it,” the town said, 
when it had an opportunity of seeing 
her. In her subdued manner, her still 
face, her low, measured tones, which 
never trembled, they read only serene 
resignation. Ah I how few of us 
think to remember in every-day life 
that it is the silent grief that does its 
work within. 

She was obliged very soon to set 
about her responsibilities. Hr. Have- 
nal’s request to her had been to post 
a certain letter that she would find in 
his desk within four-and-twenty hours 
of his decease : to post it herself. On 
the afternoon of the day following the 
death, she carried the desk to her own 
room and examined it. There was the 
letter to Edward, there was the letter 
to Oswald Cray ; both were lying 
where she had placed them ; and there 
was the packet addressed to herself. 
The letter it enclosed was directed — 

Mr. Alfred King, care of Messrs. 
Jones and Green, Essex-street, Strand, 
London.” The directions to herself 
were very clear. As soon as the 
money was realized she was to write 
and appoint an interview with Mr. 
Alfred King, and pay over to him the 
two thousand five hundred pounds, 


upon his delivering up to her certain 
papers, copies of which were enclosed. 
This interview might take place at 
Hallingham if Mr, Alfred King would 
journey to it : if he declined, she 
would be under the necessity of going 
to London and meeting him at Messrs. 
Jones and Green’s. But on no account 
was she to pay the money by deputy 
or by letter, because it was essential 
that she should examine the papers 
that would be delivered to her, and 
see that they tallied with the copies 
written down. Mr. Alfred King would 
then have to sign a receipt, which the 
doctor hM written and sealed up, and 
which, he added, she had better not 
unseal until the moment came for 
signing it. The papers to be delivered 
up and these copies of them she was 
then to burn. As soon as she reached 
home and the privacy of her own room 
she was to burn them, but the receipt 
she was to reseal up and keep until 
the return of Edward Havenal, to 
whom she would then hand it. If 
Edward died abroad, then that was 
also to be burnt. 

’ Sara looked at the sealed-up receipt, 
it was very thin, as if only a small piece 
of paper was enclosed. She read the 
copies of the papers to be delivered to 
her, and, so far as she could under- 
stand, they seemed to be promissory 
notes or bills, drawn by Alfred King, 
and accepted by her father, Richard 
Havenal. She sighed as she relocked 
the whole safely in the desk ; and still 
she could not form any very definite 
idea of what Edward’s crime had 
been. 

The letter to Mr. Alfred King, and 
the letter to Oswald Cray she kept 
out, for they must be posted ere the 
day should close. She would go out 
at dusk and do it. Hr. Havenal had 
bade her write a few lines when she 
sent the latter, and she sat down and 
did it to the best of her ability. She 
was not quite sure whether he had 
wished Mr. Oswald Cray’s letter to be 
sent as immediately as the other, but 
in the uncertainty she deemed it well 
to send it. It could not make any 
difference ; and she was very anxious 


OSWALD CRAY. 


203 


to fulfil strictly the slightest wish of 
that beloved one, gone forever. Per- 
haps the most bitter tears that Sara 
indulged in were those shed on that 
afternoon : the loss of the one gone was 
so recent ; the responsibility of this that 
she would have to undertake seemed 
so near. 

You who have occupied a house 
where one very dear is lying dead, 
must have been struck with the strange 
mockery of the contrast that the every- 
day routine of petty cares presents to 
the solemnity .of the death-chamber. 
Breakfast, and dinner, and tea, and 
supper ! They must be catered for, 
and laid, and sat down to, and eaten ; 
while the silent inmate of that shut-in 
room has done with such forever. It 
is in these moments that the poor 
wants of life, necessities though they 
are, show out in all their paltry little- 
ness. The contrast is so startling 
when compared with the solemn rest, 
as our ideas teach us, of that future 
world to which the departed one has 
gone. 

The dinner was laid at six, as usual, 
on that first day of mourning, and 
Miss Davenal, Sara, and Mrs. Cray 
sat down to it. Mrs. Cray had come 
in the early morning, full of loud weep- 
ing and lamentation, and had not gone 
away again. They sat down and ate 
their dinner ; perhaps it was but a 
poor pretence after all ; and I^eal 
waited with a subdued face and a 
softer tread than ever. Soon after 
the cloth was removed, Sara slipped 
out of the room, went up-stairs for a 
bonne't and shawl, and came down 
with the letters — and encountered her 
aunt and Caroline in the hall, who 
were moving to the drawing-room. 

Had everybody been dead in the 
house. Miss Davenal would have had 
forms and ceremonies kept up just the 
same. It was not that she did not 
sincerely mourn her brother, or was 
in any degree indifferent to his loss, 
but the one thing was quite distinct 
and apart from the other, and she saw 
no reason why they should not be kept 
so. She was completely taken by 
surprise at the sight of Sara with her 


things on, and believed nothing less 
than that grief had taken away her 
niece ^s senses. 

‘‘ I shall be back almost directly, 
aunt. I must go. It is upon a little 
business. ” 

But you canT go,” objected Miss 
Bettina. “ I never heard of such a 
thing. Go out into the open streets 
when your poor papa— — ” 

Neal came gliding forward from his 
pantry. Is it any errand that I can 
do. Miss Sara 

She felt vexed — confused — ill. 
What if her aunt should get Mr. 
King’s letter from her ? — see its ad- 
dress, and question her upon it ? — 
even open it in her perhaps justifiable 
curiosity ? Sick at heart as she was, 
her white face assumed an expression 
of resolution -that Miss Davenal had 
never seen on it before, looking not 
unlike defiance. 

Aunt Bettina, you cannot think I 
am going abroad by choice, to-night ; 
you might know that only necessity 
sends me. When my dear father was 
dying, he bade me post a letter for 
him with my own hands as soon as I 
conveniently could after his death. 
That is what I am going to do. Open 
the door, Neal.” 

Her voice, her extended hand, bore 
a command in them that Neal had 
never been treated to, and he held 
wide the door. Sara went forth with 
a firm step : had Dr. Davenal bade 
her go through a sea of fire for him, 
she would have pressed on to it in her 
loving obedience. She put the two 
letters safely in the post : it was not 
seven, therefore they would be des- 
patched that night : and then she re- 
turned home, to take her seat in the 
drawing-room with her aunt and Caro- 
line, and to parry their questions of 
curiosity. 

And as the days went on, each day 
enabled her more effectually to bury 
her pain. She constantly prayed for 
strength and calmness ; she made a 
firm resolution to go about every duty 
that appeared to rise before her, shrink- 
ing from none. Girl though she was 
in years, she was beginning to feel old 


204 


OSWALD CRAY. 


in sorrow : no teacher is like unto it. 
There are woes that bring more ex- 
perience to the heart in the first night 
of their feeling, than will half a life- 
time of smooth years. 

It was through the letters sent to 
him that Oswald Cray first learnt the 
death of Dr. Davenal. He was seated 
at his breakfast-table, in Parliament 
Street, eyes and thoughts buried in 
the Times,^’ when Benn came in 
with the letters, a whole stack of them, 
and laid them down by his side. There 
Oswald let them lie : and it was only 
in gathering them up later to take 
down and open in his business-room, 
that his eye fell on one in particular. 

He knew the writing well, and a 
flush of emotion rose to his face at 
sight of it. Rapidly singling it out, 
he let the others fall on the table 
again, and opened it. It was rather 
a large envelope, with a black border 
and black seal, and the note bore the 
date of the previous day. A second 
letter accompanied it. 

My dear Mr. Oswald Cray : 

I do not know whether I shall 
be the first to tell you of the death of 
my dear father. He died last night, 
about ten o^clock. An hour or two 
previous he penned the inclosed note 
to you, and he bade me add a few 
lines when I forwarded it, to explain 
that when he attempted it, he was 
almost past writing. But that he 
made this an especial request, I would 
not have troubled you with any thing 
from myself : indeed, I am scarcely 
capable of writing coherently to-day, 
for my grief is very great. 

** Believe me very sincerely yours, 
^'Sara Davenal.” 

The first rapid gathering-in of the 
general sense over, he leaned his elbow 
on the table and read the words de- 
liberately. It was just the note that 
her good sense would prompt her to 
write under the altered relations be- 
tween them. He felt that it was — 
but he had not witnessed her hesita- 
tion and the doubt whether she should 
not rather address him formally than 


as a friend. If those dandy clerks in 
the rooms below, if those grave gen- 
tlemen with whoih he would be 
brought in contact during the day, 
had but seen him press those two 
words, “ Sara Davenal,” to his lips ! 
He, the reserved, self-possessed man 
of business, he of the cold, proud 
spirit 1 — he kissed the name as fer- 
vently as any schoolboy kisses that in 
his first love-letter. 

And then he recollected himself, and 
as his wits, which had certainly gone 
wool-gathering, came back to him, 
another flush dyed his face far deeper 
than the last had dyed it ; the flush of 
shame that he should have been be- 
trayed into such folly. Besides, that 
was not the way to help him to forget 
her ; as it was imperative on him that 
he should do. 

He took up the note of the doctor. 
And he could scarcely believe that 
that weak scrawling writing was 
traced by the once bold, clear hand of 
Dr. Davenal. It ran as follows : 

My dear Friend : — I call you so 
in spite of the coolness that has come 
between us. I would that all should 
be friends with me in my dying hour. 

** The expected money, as you 
probably know, is at last to come to 
Caroline. I shall not be spared to 
urge its settlement upon herself, but 
do you urge it. As soon as it shall 
be paid over, let Mark secure it to 
Caroline absolutely, so that she and 
her children may have something to 
fall back upon in case of need. They 
are both young, both thoughtless, and, 
if left to themselves in the matter, will 
be almost sure to waste the money, so 
that it would do no real good to either. 

If Mark 1 cannot write more ; 

sight is failing. 

** Fare you well. My Friend, 

“R. D. 

And he was dead I For a few mo 
ments, Oswald forgot all his doubts 
and fears of the man, and leaped back 
in memory to the time when he had 
respected him more than anybody in 
the world. Had he died with that 


OSWALD CRAY. 


weight of guilt upon him ? How 
weighty was it ? How far did it ex- 
tend ? It seemed strange that he 
should so soon have followed Lady 
Oswald. Had remorse hastened his 
death ? But, in spite of these thoughts 
which Oswald called not up willingly, 
he did feel a deep sense of regret, of 
sorrow, for Dr. Davenal, and wished 
that his life might have been spared. 

It was incumbent on him to answer 
the other note, and he sat down to his 
writing-table and drew a sheet of 
paper towards him, and began : 

My dear 

There he stopped. How should he 
address her ? My dear Miss Davenal ? 
or My dear Sara ? The one seemed 
too formal, considering how long he 
had called her Sara, considering that 
the present moment of deep sorrow 
should make all her friends especially 
tender to her. But yet — My dear 
Sara — better perhaps that he should 
not. So he finally began : 

‘‘ My dear Miss Davenal : 

I do indeed heartily sympathize 
with you in your great affliction. I 
wish, for your sake and his, that the 
doctor^s life had been spared. You 
do not give me any particulars — and 
I could not at such a moment expect 
them — ^but I fear his death must have 
been sudden. Will you allow me to 
exercise the privilege of a friend, in 
begging you to endeavor to bear up 
as bravely as it is possible for you to 
do, in these the first keen moments of 
grief ? When next at Hallingham, I 
will, with your permission, call on you 
and Miss Davenal, and express to you 
in person my heartfelt sympathy. 
Meanwhile believe me now and always 
your truly sincere friend, 

'' 0. Oswald Cray. 

“ Miss Sara Davenal.” 

‘‘Of course Mark must settle it 
upon her !” he said to himself, as he 
glanced again at the contents of the 
doctor^s note to him. “ It is not to 
be supposed he would do otherwise. 


205 

However, I’ll mention it when I go 
next to Hallingham.” 

And, gathering the papers together, 
he locked them in his private desk, 
and went down to enter on his day’s 
work, carrying the rest of the letters 
in his hand. 

On the day subsequent to the inter- 
ment of Dr. Davenal, Sara told her 
aunt she should go and see the two 
little boys. It had been her wish 
that they should be sent for to attend 
the funeral, but Miss Davenal objectedijf 
they were over young, she considered. 
Sara was too really miserable to care 
about it : of what little moment do 
trifles seem when the mind is ill at 
ease. 

Miss Davenal again objected to her 
visit. In fact, had lookers-on been 
gifted with prevision, they might have 
seen that the opinions and course of 
herself and niece would be henceforth 
somewhat antagonistic to each other. 
She objected to Sara’s proposed visit, 
recommending her to defer it for a 
week or two. 

“ But, aunt, I want to see them,” 
urged Sara. “I know how grieved 
they have been : though Dick is ran- 
dom and light-headed, he has a most 
tender heart. And papa gave me a 
dying message to deliver to him. ” 

“ I say that it is too soon to go,” 
repeated Miss Davenal. “A pretty 
thing for you to be seen gadding 
about out of doors the very day after 
your poor papa was taken from the 
house.” 

“ Oh, aunt ! Gadding 1 I ” 

for a moment she struggled with her 
tears : the thought of the terrible 
weight of sorrow she must carry out 
with her wherever she went, presented 
such a contrast to the world. At 
home or out, she was ever living in 
her breaking heart : and it appeared 
of little consequence what the world 
might say. She believed it was her 
duty to see the boys as soon as pos- 
sible, and she had fully resolved that 
her duty, in all ways, should be per- 
formed to the uttermost, heaven help- 
ing her. 


206 


OSWALD CRAY. 


. '' I must go, aunt,” she said. ** I 
think I am doing right.” 

She walked in her deep mourning 
with her crape veil over her face to 
the station. One of the porters got 
her ticket for her and saw her into 
the carriage. Whether by the good 
feeling of the man or not, she did not 
know, but no one else was put into 
the same apartment. She felt quite 
grateful to the man, as the train 
steamed on, and she lay back on the 
^ “^ell-padded seat. 

The train was express, and she 
reached the station where she was to 
descend in less than an hour and a 
half. Dr. Keen^s house was very 
near. To gain its front entrance she 
had to pass the large playground. 
The boys were out for their midday 
play, and Dick DavenaPs roving eye 
caught sight of her. He climbed 
over the railings, in spite of rules, 
and burst into tears as he laid hold of 
her. Sara had pictured the two boys 
in apple-pie order in their new mourn- 
ing, quiet and subdued ; but here they 
were in their ordinary clothes, dirty 
and .dusty,, and Dick had a woful rent 
in one knee. 

Oh, Sara I is it all true ? Is he 
really dead and buried? Couldn’t he 
cure himself ?” 

She subdued her own emotion — it 
was only in accordance with the line 
she had laid down for herself. She 
kissed the boy in the face of the sea 
of eyes peering through the rails, and 
held him near her as they advanced 
to the house. Leo, less daring than 
Dick, had gone round by the gate, 
and Sara drew him on her other side 
as he came running up. 

She sat down in the room to which 
she was shown, holding the sobbing 
boys to her. As she had said, to her 
aunt, Dick had a tender heart, and 
his sobs were loud and passionate. 
Leo cried with him. She waited to 
let their emotion have vent, holding 
their hands, bending now and again 
her face against theirs. 

CouldnH he be cured, Sara ?” 

‘‘ No, dears, he could not be cured. 
It was God’s will to take him.” . 


“ Why didn’t you have us home ? 
Why didn’t you let us say good-bv 
to him ?” 

There was no time. We thought 
he was getting better, and it was 
only quite at the very last we 
knew he was dying. He did not 
forget you and Leo, Dick. He bade 
me tell you — they were his own 
words — that Uncle Richard would 
have sent for you to take a last 
farewell, but that death came upon 
him too suddenly. He bade me tell 
you that you will meet him in that 
far-off land where your toils and his 
will be alike over ; and — listen, chil 
dren I — he charged you to be ever 
working on for it.” 

Their sobs came forth again. Leo 
was the first to speak. “ Have 
you written to Barbadoes to tell 
papa ?” 

‘‘Aunt Bettina has. See, dears, 
here are two silver pencil-cases ; they 
were both your Uncle Richard’s. 
The one has his crest on it ; the other 
his initials, R. D. I thought you 
would like to have some little remem- 
brance of him, and I brought them. 
Which will you choose, Dick? You 
are the eldest.” 

Dick took the pencils in his hand 
and decided on the largest, the one 
that bore the initials. The stone was 
a beautiful one, a sapphire. 

“ Is it real, Sara ?” 

“ Oh, yes. This is the best for you 
as the initials wouldn’t stand for Leo 
The other stone is real, too, Leo : 
opal. Try and not lose them.” 

“ I’ll never lose mine,” avowed 
Dick. Leo only shook his head in 
answer, as he put the memento in his 
pocket. 

The gifts, had created a diversion, 
and the tears began to dry upon their 
faces ; school-boys’ tears are not very 
deep. Sara spoke of their mourning, 
inquiring why it was not on. 

“We wore it yesterday,” said Dick. 
“ And we had holiday, we two, and 
stopped in Mrs. Keen’s parlor instead 
of going into school. But the house- 
keeper told us to put on our other 
clothes on this morning f she said if 


OSWALD OKAY. 


we wore our black suit every day, it 
would be done for in a week.’^ 

‘‘Not unlikely — by the specimen 
of the present suit Mr. Dick wore. 
Sara pointed to the rent in the knee. 

“ I know,^’ said Dick, looking care- 
lessly down at it. “ I did it only just 
before I saw you, wrestling with a 
fellow. He says he’s stronger than I 
am, but he isn’t, so we were trying 
which was best man. All in good 
part you know. I say, Sara, shall we 
come home for the holidays now, as 
we used to ?” 

“ My dears, I don’t know yet much 
about the future. It will be Aunt 
Bettina’s home now. I think she w’ijl 
be sure to have you as usual.” 

“ Why, won’t it be your home ?” 
cried Dick, quickly. 

“I shall live. with Aunt Bettina. 
It will not be the same home for either 
of us — not the same house, I mean. I 
think — I don’t know yet, but I think 
it likely Mr. Cray and Caroline will 
come to it. Perhaps Aunt Bettina 
will go to one of her own houses.” 

Why can’t you and Aunt Bettina 
stop in that ?” 

“ It is too large for us. And the 
things are going to be sold.” 

“ The things going to be sold I” re- 
peated Dick, lifting his eyes and voice 
in amazement. 

“ Papa has so directed in his will. 
You know — at least I dare say you 
have heard — that Aunt Bettina has a 
great deal of very nice furniture which 
has been lying by in a warehouse ever 
since she came to live with us. I 
can’t tell you yet how things will be 
settled.” 

“ I say, Sara, how slow and quiet 
you speak ! And how pale you are 1” 

Sara swallowed down a lump in her 
throat. “ Papa was all I^had left to 
me, Dick. Leo, ’my dear, you are 
quiet and pale, too 1” 

I say, Sara — never mind Leo, he’s 
all right— have you got a great great 
fortune left you ? The boys here 
were saying you’d have such a lot : 
you and the captain between you.” 

** The boys were mistaken,. Dick. 
Papa has not died rich. He died 


207 

something else, Dick — a good man. 
That is better than dying rich.” 

“If he wasn’t rich, why did he give 
back that money that Lady Oswald 
left him ?” 

“ Oh, Dick ! Do you know that 
the remembrance of having given 
back that money was one of his conso- 
lations in dying. Dick, dear, he hoped 
you would work on always for that 
better world. But the acquiring 
money wrongfully, or the keeping it 
unjustly, would not, I think, help you 
on your road to it.” » 

They were interrupted by the en- 
trance of Mrs. Keen, a kind, motherly 
woman. She insisted on Sara’s tak- 
ing off her bonnet and partaking of 
some refreshment. Sara yielded : 
choosing bread-and-butler and a cup 
of coffee. And Mrs. Keen and Dick 
and Leo afterwards walked with her 
back to the station. 


CHAPTER XXX. 

WORK FOR THE FUTURE. 

The clocks were striking four when 
Sara Davenal was walking through 
the streets of Hallingham on her re- 
turn. She stepped along rapidly, her 
crape veil over her face, and was 
molested by none with greetings or 
condolences : but she stopped of her 
own accord on meeting the poor 
market-woman, Mrs. Hundley. The 
woman, her face broken by sorrow, 
flung up her hands before Sara could 
speak. 

“ To think that he should have been 
the first to go ! — before my poor boy, 
whose life, as may be said, he had 
been keeping in him I The one a 
dying for months past, the other a 
hale gentleman as seemed to have 
health in him for a lifetime. Oh, 
miss ! what will the sick do without 
him ?” 

“ How is your son ?” was all Sara’s 
answer. 

“ He has come nearly to his last, 


208 


OSWALD CRAY. 


miss. Another week ’ll see the end. 
When the news came out to us that 
file good Dr. Davenal was gone, we 
could^n’t believe it : and my boy, he 
says, ^ Mother, it can’t be ; it can’t 
never be.’ And he set on and sobbed 
like a child.” 

In spite of her efforts, the tears 
overflowed Sara’s eyes. To have it 
thus brought palpably before her was 
more than she could bear with equa- 
nimity. Papa is better off,” was all 
she murmured. 

Ay, he’s better off : if ever a man 
had done his best in this world, miss, 
it was him. But who’ll be found to 
take his place ?” 

With the full sense of the last ques- 
tion echoing *on her ear, Sara con- 
tinued her way. At the top of the 
lane contiguous to their residence was 
Roger, standing in disconsolate idle- 
ness. With the death of his master, 
Roger’s occupation was gone. 

Sara spoke a kind word to him in 
passing, and met Mr. Wheatley com- 
ing out at the gate, her father’s close 
friend of many years. A surgeon 
once, but retired from the profession 
now. He it was who was named the 
sole executor to the doctor’s will. 

The will, which was causing sur- 
prise to the curious in Hallingham, 
had been made in the doctor’s recent 
illness. It directed that all property 
he died possessed of should be sold, 
and the money realized be paid at 
once to his daughter. Every thing 
was left to her. In the previous will, 
destroyed^ to make room for this, 
Edward Davenal’s name had been 
associated with Mr. Wheatley’s : in 
this Mr. Wheatley was left sole ex- 
ecutor : in fact, Edward’s name was 
not so much as mentioned in it. 

Have you been calling on my 
aunt, Mr. Wheatley ?” 

No, my visit was to you,” he an- 
swered. He was a bluff, plain-speak- 
ing man, tall and stout, with a red and 
white face, large fine blue eyes and 
white hair. Some people did not like 
Mr. Wheatley : he was too abrupt for 
them. But he was of inward sterling 


worth, honest as the day. **Neal 
said you were out, so I came away,” 
he continued. ‘‘I’ll go back with 
you.” 

“I have been to see Dick and Leo,” 
she explained. . “ My aunt thought I 
ought not to go out so soon; that 
people might remark upon it. But I 
am glad I went, poor boys 1’^ 

“ People remark upon it 1” echoed 
Mr. Wheatley. “ I should like to 
hear them. What is there to remark 
upon in that? Miss Sara, I have 
gone through life just doing the thing 
I pleased according to my own no- 
tions of right, without reference to 
what other folks might think, and I 
have found it answer. You do the 
same, and never fear.” 

She led the way into the dining- 
room, and closed the door. She un- 
derstood he wished to speak with her. 
The fire was burning itself out to an 
empty room, Miss Davenal being up- 
stairs. Ah, how changed the house 
was only in the short week or two 1 
It would never more be alive with the 
tread of patients coming to consult 
Dr. Davenal ; ne^r more be cheered 
with his voice echoing through the 
corridors. The dwelling’s occupation, 
like Roger’s, had gone. 

Mr. Wheatley sat down in the chair 
that had once been the doctor’s, and 
Sara untied her bonnet strings, and 
took a seat near him. The fresh news- 
papers, unfolded, lay on the table as 
of yore : the whilom readers of them, 
the waiting sick, had ceased their 
visits for ever. 

“ Now, Miss Sara, I’m left sole 
executor to this will, as you heard 
read out yesterday,” he began. “ It 
states — I dare say you noted it — that 
things were to be disposed of with all 
convenient despatch. Did you observe 
that clause ?” 

“ Yes: ” 

“Very good. Besides that, in the 
very last interview that I had with 
my poor friend — it was the afternoon 
of the day he died, as you may re- 
member — he eiyoined the same thing 
upon me; no delay. There was a 


OSWALD CRAY. 


209 


necessity, he said, for ygur being put 
in possession of the money as soon as 
possible.’^ 

Sara had no ready answer at hand. 
She believed there might be that ne- 
cessity, but did not like to acknowledge 
it. She took off her bonnet, and laid 
it beside her on the table, as if at a 
loss for something to do. 

‘‘ Yow I don’t want to inquire into 
reasons and motives,” went on Mr. 
Wheatley. ‘M’d rather not inquire 
into them or hear them ; what your 
father did not see fit to tell me. I’ll 
prefer that nobody else should tell 
me. I am sure of one thing : that he 
kept it from me either out of necessity 
or to spare me pain. That things 
had not gone on very straight with 
him, he told me ; and that, coupled 
with the curious will, leaving every 
thing to you without the protection 
of trustees or else, does of course 
force me to see that there’s something 
behind the scenes. But while I admit 
so much, I repeat that I do not specu- 
late upon what it may be, even in my 
own mind, nor do I wish to do so. 
One question I must ask you — were 
you in your father’s confidence ?” 

‘‘Yes. At least, if not quite en- 
tirely, sufficiently so to carry out all 
his directions and wishes. But, in- 
deed, I may say that I was in his con- 
fidence,” she added, with less hesita- 
tion. “ He talked to me a great deal 
the night of his death.” 

“ And you will be at no loss what 
to do with the money that shall be 
realized ?” 

“None.” 

“That’s all straight, then, and I 
know how to set to work. My dear, 
it was necessary that I should just say 
so much, for it would not have been 
well for us to work at cross purposes, 
and I am sure you do not misunder- 
stand me. There’s something behind, 
which is no more your secret than it 
is mine ; it was the doctor’s ; and we 
need not further allude to it. I’ll 
carry out his will, and you’ll carry- 
out his wishes afterwards : he hinted 
to me that the money would have an 
ulterior destination. Any suggestion 

13 


you may have to make to me, you 
will now do with more ease than if 
you had supposed I was under the 
impression that the money was only 
going to you. Don’t you think it was 
better that I should speak ?” 

“ Indeed it was, and I thank you.’^ 

“ Well, now to business. As I un- 
derstand it, there’s a necessity, per- 
haps an imperative one — in fact, the 
doctor told me so, for immediate action. 
The first consideration then is, when 
shall you be prepared to leave the 
house ? Measures will be taken to 
put it up for sale, and there’s not the 
least doubt of its finding a ready pur- 
chaser, for it’s one of the best houses 
in Ilallingham, and in its best part. 
That will be easy. The next thing 
will be the sale of the effects. Of 
course the sooner you leave the house, 
the sooner they can be sold.” 

It quite wrung her heart to hear 
him speak of all this in the dry tone 
of a man of business. She did what 
she could to bring her mind to bear it 
equably. There was no help for it;, 
and she- had resolved, by the good 
help of heaven, to go through all un- 
flinchingly, heedless of the pain. 

“ It depends upon my aunt, Mr. 
Wheatley. So far as I go, I could 
be out in a few days ; but she will 
have her home to fix upon. I had 
better speak to her.” 

“ Yery well. There’s another plan 
I have been thinking of. That in- 
stead of having the things put up for 

auction — a ruinous mode. Miss Sara 

we might find a purchaser for them in 
the new occupant of the house. The 
worst is, the house is almost sure to 
be snapped up by one or other of the 
doctors in the town, and they most of 
them possess their furniture already.” 

“Papa said, when he was dyirig, 
that he thought Mark Cray ought to 
leave the abbey and come here.” 

“Mark Cray? Well, he has the 
most right to do so; he was your 
father’s partner. I never thought of 
him. Of course he will ; Ac’ll not let 
it slip through his fingers. The mere 
taking this house would be a certain 
practice for any one. Mark Cray has 


210 


OSWALD CRAY. 


his practice ready cut and dried to his 
hand, but he’ll not let the house go 
by him.” 

Mr. Cray has just furnished the 
abbey. ” 

‘‘But perhaps he — however, it will 
be well that somebody should see 
him, and ascertain what his wishes 
may be. It is a pity but he had 
. money : he might purchase the house. 
By the way, there’s that Chancery 
money come or coming to his wife I” 

Sara shook her head. “ That money 
is to be settled upon her. It was one 
of papa’s last injunctions.” 

“Well', and how can that be better 
done than by buying freehold prop- 
erty, such as this? It will be the 
very thing for them, I should say. 
Let them buy this house and settle it 
upon her ; it will be a capital invest- 
ment. As to the furniture, if they 
don’t care to buy that, it must be sold. 
Suppose you ask Miss Davenal when 
she shall be ready to vacate it ; and^ 
meanwhile. I’ll see Mr. Cray.” 

He wa'5 a man of prompt action, 
this old friend of Dr. Davenal’s, and 
he rose as he spoke, shook hands with 
Sara, and bustled out so hastily that 
even attentive Neal did not catch him 
up in time to close the hall-door be- 
hind him. Sara supposed he was 
going then and there to Mark Cray’s. 

She took her bonnet in her hand 
and went slowly up the stairs. It 
was not a pleasant task, this question 
that she had to put to* her aunt, and 
she was glad of the little delay of even 
turning lirst into her own room to 
take her things off after her journey. 
Since the reading of the will yester- 
day, Miss Daivenal had been in one 
of her most chilling moods. She had 
asked an explanation of Sara, when 
tliey were alone, what was the mean- 
ing of all this, what Dr. Davenal’s 
secret was, and where the money 
had gone to. Sara could only eva- 
sively put her off; one of the charges 
enjoined on his daughter by the doc- 
tor had been — not to place Edward 
in the power of his aunt. 

It was not that Dr. Davenal feared 
the loyalty and good faith of his sis- 


ter ; but he. knew how bitterly she 
would judge Edward, and he was 
willing to spare blame even to his 
guilty son. It is possible, also, that 
he deemed the secret safest left to 
Sara alone. Whatever his motive, ho 
had said to her : “ I charge you, keep 
it from your Aunt Bettina ;” and 
Sara had accepted the charge, and 
meant to act upon it. But Dr. Dav- 
enal might never have left it, had he 
foreseen the unpleasantness it entailed 
on Sara. 

Yery curious, very cross, very deaf, 
was Bettina Davenal, as she sat in the 
drawing-room at her usual occupation, 
knitting. Her clinging mourning 
robes made her figure appear thinner 
and taller ; and that, as you are aware, 
need not have been. She had seen 
from the window Sara come in, and 
she now thought she heard her foot- 
fall on the stairs ; and her neck was 
thrown more upright than ever, and 
her lips were ominously compressed. 
It was this general displeasure which 
had chiefly caused the objection she 
made to Sara’s visiting the boys. 
Sara had gone, defying her ; at least, 
she looked upon it in that light. Was 
she about to defy her in all things ? 

She just looked up when Sara en- 
tered the room, and then dropped her 
eyelids again, never speaking. Sara 
stood near the window, her head 
shaded by the half-drawn blind. 

“ Well, I have been, aunt.” 

“ Been ?” grunted Miss Bettina. 
“ Not anywhere. Where do you 
suppose I have been ? I know pro- 
priety better than to be seen stream- 
ing abroad to-day.” 

Sara drew a chair to the little table 
on which lay her aunt’s pearl basket 
of wool, and sat down close to her 
Her pale, refined face was ominously 
severe, and Sara’s heart seemed to 
faint at her task. Not at this one 
particular task before her, but at the 
heavy task altogetiier that her life had 
become. It was not by fainting, how- 
ever, that she would get through it, 
neither was it the line of action she 
had carved out for herself. 

“ I observed that I had been to see 


OSWALD CRAY. 


the boys, Aunt Bettina. They both 
send their love to you.” 

dare say they do. Especially 
that impudent Dick 1” 

Mrs. Keen also desired to be re- 
membered,” continued Sara. 

‘‘You can send back my thanks for 
the honor,” ironically spoke Miss 
Davenal. The last time she was at 
Hallingham she passed our house with- 
out calling.” 

She spoke of it to-day, Aunt Bet- 
tina. She nodded to you at the win- 
dow, she said, and pointed towards 
the station : she wished you to under- 
stand that she was pressed for time.” 

Aunt Bettina made no answer. She 
was knitting vehemently. Apparently 
Sara was not getting along very well. 

Mr. Wheately has been here, aunt.” 

You need not tell it me. He has 
been dodging in and out like a dog in 
a fair. Anybody but he might have 
respected the quiet of the house on the 
very day after its poor master had been 
taken from it. He came in and went 
out again, and then came in again — 
with you. As he had come, he might 
have been polite enough to ask for me. 
Neal said he wanted you. Early 
times, I think, to begin showing peo- 
ple you are the house’s mistress !” 

It was not a promising commence- 
ment. Sara could only apply herself 
to her task in all deprecating meekness. 

‘*Aunt Bettina, he came to speak 
about the future. I dare say he 
thought you would not like to be in- 
truded upon to-day, for he wished me 
to talk things over with you. He 
was asking when we — you — ^when we 
should be ready to vacate the house.” 

“ To do what ?” she repeated shrilly. 
But she heard very well. Sara was 
close to her and speaking in low clear 
tones. 

'' When we shall be ready to leave 
the house ?” 

Had he not better turn us out of 
it to-day ?” was the retort of the 
angry lady. “ How dare he show 
this indecent haste ?” 

Oh, aunt ! You know it is only 
in accordance with papa’s will that he 


211 

has to do it. You heard it read. You 
read it to yourself afterwards.” 

Yes, I did read it to myself after- 
wards : I could not believe that my 
brother Richard would have made 
such a will, and I chose to satisfy 
myself by reading it. Every thing to 
be sold, indeed ; as if we were so 
many bankrupts ! Hold your tongue, 
Sara I Do you think I don’t grieve 
for the loss of the best brother that 
ever stepped ? But there are things 
that I don’t understand.” 

There is a necessity for the things 
being sold. Aunt Bettina.” 

He told me so before he died : 
you need not repeat it to me. Where’s 
the money to be paid ?” 

*^And therefore Mr. Wheatley is 
desirous that there should be no un- 
necessary delay,” Sara continued, 
a faint color tinging her cheek at the 
consciousness of evading her aunt’s 
question. ^‘He does not ask us to 
go out at once. Aunt Bettina : he only 
wishes to know when we shall be 
ready to go out.” 

Then tell him from me that I will 
be no hindrance,” retorted Miss Bet- 
tina, her temper rising. To-morrow 
— the next day — the day after — any 
day he pleases, now, or in a month to 
come. I can get a lodging at an 
hour’s notice.” 

“Aunt, why are you so angry with 
me ?” 

The burst came from her in her 
pain and vexation. • She could not 
help feeling how unjust it was to cast 
this anger upon her ; how little she 
had done to deserve it. Miss Bettina 
knitted on more fiercely, declining an 
answer. 

“It is not my fault, aunt. If you 
knew — if you knew what I have to 
bear 1” 

“It is your fault, Sara Davenal. 
What I complain of is your fault. 
You are keeping this secret from me. 
I don’t complain that they are going 
to sell the chairs and tables : Richard 
has willed it so, and there’s no help 
for it : but I don’t like to be kept in 
the dark as to the reason, or where 


212 


OSWALD CRAY. 


the money is to go. Why don’t you 
tell it me 

It was a painful position for Sara. 
She had always been dutiful and sub- 
missive to her aunt : far more so than 
her brothers or Caroline had been. 

‘'Aunt Bettina, I cannot tell you. 
I wish I could.” 

“ Do you mean to imply that you 
do not know it ?” 

“ No, I don’t mean that. I do know 
it. At least, I know it partially. 
Papa did not tell me quite all.” 

Miss Bettina’s usually placid chest 
was heaving with indignation. “And 
why could he not tell me, instead of 
you ? I think I am more fit to be the 
depositary of a disgraceful secret than 
you are, a child ! And I expect it is 
a disgraceful one.” 

Ah, how disgraceful Sara knew 
only too well. She sat in silence, 
not daring to acknowledge it, not 
knowing what to answer. 

“ Once for all — will you confide it 
to me ?” 

Sara believed, as it had come to 
this, that it would be better if she 
could confide it to her ; but the in- 
junction of Dr. Davenal was a bar, 
and that she felt it her duty religiously 
to obey. In her deep love for her 
father, she would not cast the onus 
of refusal upon him, preferring to let 
it rest on herself. 

“Believe me, aunt, I cannot tell 
you. I am very sorry ; I wish I did 
not know it mysolf. It — it was papa’s 
secret, and I must not tell it.” 

In the twitching of her hands Miss 
Bettina contrived to throw down the 
ball of wool. Sara picked it up, glad 
of the little interlude. 

It did not serve her. Her aunt 
caught the ball from her hand and 
held her before her, fixing her cold 
light eyes upon her face. 

“ How dare you play with me ? 
Give me a final answer, yes, or no. 
Will you tell this secret to me ?” 

“ I must not, aunt. It is not my 
fault. You blame me for what I 
cannot help.” 

“You can help being obstinate. 
Will you or will you not ?” 


“Then — if I have no resource I 
must say I will not,” was Sara’s 
pained answer. “Aunt, I cannot help 
myself : you should not put it in that 
light.”- 

Bettina Davenal loosed her niece, 
and resumed her knitting, saying not 
another word. But the lips were 
drawn tightly inwards, and the long 
white fingers trembled at their work. 

A silence ensued. Sara could not 
help feeling that her aunt had a right 
to be vexed at the want of confidence, 
at being kept aloof from the trouble 
and the secret as though she were a 
stranger. She resumed in a tone of 
sweet deprecation. 

“Aunt Bettina, we could not have 
stayed on in this large house.” 

“ Did I say we could ?” asked Miss 
Bettina. “Not now, when all your 
money’s gone in ducks and drakes.” 

“Papa — papa could not help the 
money going,” she reiterated, her 
heart swelling in the eager wish to 
defend him. “ He could not help it. 
Aunt Bettina.” 

“ I am not saying that he could. I 
am not casting reproach on him. It 
is not to be supposed had he been 
able to help it that he would have let 
it go. How touchy you are I” 

“ Don’t you think Mark and Caro- 
line would like to come here, aunt ? 
Mr. Wheatley suggested that they 
should be spoken to before the house 
is offered to others.” 

“ There are a great many would 
like to come to it besides Mark Cray 
and Caroline,” was the crusty answer 
of Miss Bettina. “ They may not get 
the chance ; the house is to be sold 
before it’s let.” 

“But Mr. Wheatley thought that 
they might like to purchase it wdth 
some of this money that’s coming to 
Caroline. He said it would be a good 
investment, as the house might be 
settled on her.” 

Miss Bettina, not at all a bad woman 
of business, was struck with the sug- 
gestion. IShe sat revolving it in si- 
lence, apparently only intent on her 
knitting. She supposed it could be so 
settled on Caroline, but she did not 


OSWALD CRAY. 


213 


understand much of what the law 
might be. 

'' Mr. Wheatley thinks it would be 
so much better if these things could be 
taken too by whoever takes the house,” 
proceeded Sara. So as to avoid a 
public auction.” 

Now that was one of the sore points 
troubling Miss Davenal — the prospect 
of selling the things by public auction. 
She had a most inveterate hatred to 
any such step, looking upon all sales 
of furniture, no matter what the cause 
of sale, as a humiliation. Hence the 
motive which had induced her to ware- 
house her handsome furniture instead 
of selling it w^hen years ago she gave 
up housekeeping to take up her abode 
at Dr. DavenaPs. 

Others knew that, before Mr. 
Wheatley,” she said ungraciously : 
^‘a public auction in this house! I 
would not stop in the town to see it.” 

Miss Bettina began to debate ques- 
tions in her mind. In her cold way 
she was fond of Caroline ; that is, she 
deemed it her duty to be so ; and she 
rapidly determined that Mark, and no 
other, should come into the doctor’s 
house. 

Has old Wheatley spoken to 
Mark ?” she asked. 

He said he would speak to him, 
aunt. I fancy he meant to speak to 
him at once — to-day.” 

‘‘You fancy I Can’t you under- 
stand things better than that ?” 

“ He went away very quickly. It 
struck me he was going to Mark’s 
then.” 

“ But you are not sure ?” 

“ No, I am not sure.” 

Miss Davenal grunted as she went 
on with her knitting. She herself al- 
ways liked to be “ sure so far as her 
deafness allowed her. ' Turning to 
glance at the timepiece, she crossed 
the room and opened the door. There 
stood Neal. 

Neal at his eaves-dropping, of 
course. And the black robes of his 
mistress were so soft, her footfall so 
noiseless on the rich carpet, that Neal’s 
ear for once failed h^. But he was 
not one to allow himself to be caught. 


He had the coal-box in his hand, and 
was apparently stooping to pick up a 
bit of coal that had fallen on the 
ground. Miss Davenal would as soon 
have suspected herself capable of lis- 
tening at doors as that estimable ser- 
vant, Neal. 

“ Let the dinner be on the table to 
the moment, Neal,” were her orders. 
“ And I shall want you to attend me 
abroad afterwards.” 

“ Are you going out. Aunt Bet- 
tina ?” Sara ventured to inquire.’ 

“ Yes, I am,” was the sharp answer, 
“But not until the shades of night 
shall be upon the streets.” 

Sara understood the covert re- 
proach. Her aunt’s manners towards 
her had settled into a cold, chilling 
reserve. Sara wondered if they would 
ever thaw again. 

Miss Davenal made her dinner de- 
liberately : she never hurried over 
any thing : and went out afterwards 
on foot, attended by Neal. Sara 
rightly judged that she was going to 
the abbey, but she did not dare to 
ask. She, Sara, went to the drawing- 
room, from old custom ; shivering as 
she stepped up the wide staircase : 
not from cold, but from the loneliness 
that seemed to pervade the house. 
She had not got over that sense of 
strange nameless fear which the pres- 
ence of the dead imparts and leaves 
behind it. The drawing-room was 
lighted as usual: no alteration had 
been made in the habits of the house ; 
but as Sara glanced round its space, a 
nervous superstition began to creep 
over her. Perhaps the bravest of us 
have at times experienced such. 

How glad she was to hear a foot- 
step passing the door, let those tell 
who have felt this. Had she been 
flying from .some palpable danger, she 
could not more hastily have flung it 
open. Watton was descending from 
, her chamber, a candle and a letter in 
her hand. 

“ Do come in for a minute, Watton ! 
The room feels so lonely.” 

“ Ah, Miss Sara, the loneliness is 
not in the room,” was the woman’s 
response, as she entered. I declare 


214 


OSWALD CRAY. 


my own chamber up-stairs seems queer 
to me, and I am of an age to know 
better, What a change a week some- 
times makes in a home I And there’ll 
be changes still I I shall be gone ; 
gone to that bewildering place, Lon- 
don,” she added, giving a sort of 
twitch to the letter she held, as if to 
indicate that it concerned the matter ; 

and Jessy, she told me just now that 
she thought from hints dropped by 
my mistress that she should have to 
leave. Do you know, Miss Sara ?” 

“ There will be changes, of course. 
I don’t know yet.” 

She spoke in a hasty tone, one not 
inviting the renewal of the subject. 
It could only be to her a topic of 
pain. A short silence, and Watton 
was preparing to leave the room, when 
the knock of a visitor was heard. 

'^Will you see any one to-night, 
Miss Sara ?” 

Yes, oh yes.” It was a welcome 
break to her loneliness, and Sara 
thought it could be only Mr. Wheatley 
or her cousin Caroline. Certainly she 
was not prepared to see the one whom 
Watton came up again to usher in ; 
Mr. Oswald Cray. 

Every pulse of her body stood still 
for a moment, and then bounded on- 
wards, every thrill of her heart went 
out to him in a joyous greeting. In 
this dreadful sorrow and sadness, he 
had been growing all the dearer. 

He was still in deep mourning. He 
looked taller, finer, more noble than 
of yore, or she fancied it, as be bent 
a little to her and took her hand, and 
kept it. He saw the quiver of the 
slight frame ; he saw the red rose 
that dyed the pale cheeks with blushes, 
and Mr. Oswald Cray knew that he 
W'as not forgotten by her, any more 
than she was by him. But he knew 
also that both of them had only one 
thing to do — to bury those feelings 
now, to condemn them to oblivion for 
the future. The daughter of Dr. 
Davenal dead, could be no more a 
wife for him, Oswald Cray, than the 
daughter of Dr. Davenal living, and 
most certainly he was the last man to 


be betrayed into forgetting that un- 
compromising fact. 

The rose blush faded away, and he 
saw how weak and worn was her 
cheek ; young, fragile, almost childish 
she looked in her evening dress of 
black, the jet chain on her white shoul- 
ders. Insensibly his voice assumed 
a tenderness rarely used to her. 

I have ventured on the privilege 
of a friend in calling at this late hour,” 
were the first words he spoke. I 
could not quit the town without see- 
ing you, but I came to it only an hour 
ago, and leave again to-night. Miss 
Davenal 1 I see how it is I You are 
suffering more than is good for you.” • 
But for the very greatest effort, the 
tears she had believed to have put 
under permanent control w^ould have 
dropped then. A moment’s pause for 
calmness, and she remembered that 
her hand was lying in his, withdrew 
it, and sat down quietly in a chair, 
pointing to one for him. But the 
forced calmness brought a sickness to 
her heart, a pallor to her aching brow’'. 

“ How shall I tell you of my sym- 
pathy in your deep sorrow ? I can- 
not express it : but you will believe 
me when I say that I feel it almost 
as you can do. It is indeed a trying 
time for you ; a grief which has come 
to you all too early.” 

Yes,” she gently answ'^ered, swal- 
lowing the lump that kept rising in 
her throat. I have a good deal to 
bear.” 

There is only one comfort to be 
felt at these times — and that the 
mourner can but rarely feel,” he said, 
drawing his chair near to her. It 
lies in the knov/ledge, the recollection 
that Time, the great healer, will bind 
up the sorest wounds.” 

It can never bind up mine,” she 
said, speaking in the moment’s im- 
pulse. “ But you are very kind ; you 
are very kind to try to cheer me.” 

I wish I could cheer you I I 
wish I could remove every sorrow 
under which you suffer ! No one 
living wmuld be a truer friend to 
you than I should like to be. How 


OSWALD CRAY. 


215 


is Miss Davenal he continued, pos- 
sibly fancying he might be saying too 
much, or at least that a construction 
he never intended might appear to 
belong to his words. “ Watton said 
she was out. I suppose, in point of 
fact, she will not see me to-night. I 
know what war I wage with etiquette 
in being here so soon and at this 
hour, and Miss Davenal is a close 
observer of it. Will you forgive 
me 

Indeed I am glad to see you,’^ 
said Sara, simply. I am doubly 
glad, for I feel almost ashamed to 
confess I was getting too nervous to 
be alone. My aunt is out; she went 
to the abbey as soon as dinner was 
over. I am glad to see you thus 
early,’’ she added, ^‘because I have a 
word to say to you from — from papa.” 

“Yes,” said Oswald, lifting his 
head with slight eagerness, an un- 
usual thing for him to do. 

“ In the letter he wrote to you, and 
which I sent — the letter you received,” 
she continued, looking at him and 
pausing. 

“ Yes ?” 

“He spoke of Mrs. Cray’s money 
in it, as he told me. He wished you 
to interest yourself and see that it 
was settled upon her. When he wrote 
that letter, he was almost past exer- 
tion, and had to conclude it abruptly, 
not having said so much as he wished 
to say. Therefore he enjoined me to 
urge it upon you from him. He 
thought — I believe he thought that 
Mark Cray was inclined to be care- 
less, and that the money might be 
wasted unless some one interfered. 
That was all.” 

“ I shall speak to Mark. Most cer- 
tainly I will urge the settlement of 
the money on his wife, should there 
be occasion for it ; but I imagine 
Mark will naturally so settle it with- 
out any urging. It is quite incum- 
bent on him to do so, both as a matter 
of prudence and that it is his wife’s 
money, not his.” 

“ I don’t think Mark has much no- 
tion of prudence,” she rejoined. 


“ I don’t think he has, in a general 
way. But the most careless would 
surely act in accordance with its dic- 
tates, in a case like this. I am going 
to the abbey presently.” 

“ I fancy that papa thought — or 
wished — that you would be one of 
the trustees, should trustees be re- 
quired.” 

“ I should have no objection,” said 
Oswald, after a pause. “ But— to go 
to another subject, if you can bear 
me to touch upon it — was not Dr. 
Davenal’s death sudden at the last ?” 

“ Quite at the last it was. He had 
some days of dangerous illness, and 
he rallied from it, as we all supposed. 
It was thought he was out of danger, 
and he sat up : he sat up for several 
hours — and died.” 

She spoke the words quietly, almost 
as she might have told the death of 
one not related to her, her hands 
clasped on her lap, her face a little 
bent, her eyelids drooping. But Os- 
wald Cray saw that it was the calm- 
ness that proceeds from that stern 
schooling of the heart which can only 
be enforced by those heavy-laden with 
hopeless pain. 

“ He died sitting up ?” 

“ Yes. It was getting late, but he 
would not return to bed. He had 
been talking to me about many things ; 
I was on a low seat, my head leaning 
against him. He died with his arm 
round me.” 

“What a trial! What a shock it 
must have been !” 

“ I had no idea he was dead. He 
ceased talking, and I remained quiet, 
not to disturb him. My Aunt Bettina 
came in, and saw what had happened.” 

He scarcely knew what to say in 
answer. All comments at such a 
time are so grievously inadequate. 
He murmured some words of pity for 
the fate of Dr. Davenal, of compas- 
sion for her. 

“ It is Hallingham that deserves, 
perhaps, most of real pity,” she re- 
sumed, speaking in this matter-of-fact 
way that she might succeed in retain- 
ing her composure. “ I do not know 


» 


216 


OSWALD CRAY. 


who will replace my father : no one, I 
fear, for a long while. If you knew 
how he is mourned-- — 

She stopped, perhaps at a loss for 
words. 

Did he suffer much asked Mr. 
Oswald Cray. 

He suffered here ” — -touching her 
chest — “but the pain ceased the last 
day or two, and the breathing got 
better. He bad a great deal of pain 
of mind — as — perhaps — you — know. 
He was quite resigned to die : be 
said God was taking him to a better 
home.^’ 

Still at cross purposes. Sara’s hesi- 
tating avowal pointed to a different 
cause of mental pain from that as- 
sumed by Oswald Cray. 

“ Yes,” he at length said, abstract- 
edly, for neither spoke for a few min- 
utes, “it is a loss to Hallingham. 
This will be sad news to write to 
your brother.” 

“It is already written. The mail 
has just gone. Oh, yes I it will be 
grievous news for Edward.” 

The last words were spoken in a 
tone of intense pain. She checked it, 
and began talking of her aunt, of 
Caroline, of any thing ; almost as if 
she doul3ted herself. She told him 
she had been out that day to see the 
two little boys. At length he rose to 
leave. 

“Will you not stay and take some 
tea ? I do not suppose my aunt will 
be long.” 

He declined. He seemed to have 
grown more cold and formal. Until 
he took her hand in leaving, and then 
the tender tone of voice, the pleasant 
look of the eye shone out again. 

“ May Heaven be with you. Miss 
Da venal ! — and render your future 
days happier than they can be just 
now. Fare you well ! I hope to hear 
good news of you from time to time.” 

Which was of course equivalent to 
saying that he should not be a visitor. 
She had not expected that he would 
be. He turned back ere he gained 
the door. 

“If I can be of service to you at 
any time or in any way, I hope you 


will not hesitate to command me. 
Nothing would give me so much grati- 
fication as the being of use to you, 
should need arise.” 

It was very polite, it was very kind, 
and at the same time very formal. 
Perhaps the strangest part throughout 
the interview to Sara’s ears was that 
he had called her “Miss Davenal,” 
for it presented so great a contrast to 
the past : the past which was at an 
end forever. 

He went out, shown through the 
hall by Jessy, and leaving his card on 
the standing waiter for Miss Davenal. 
All en regie. And Sara in the large 
drawing room, so dreary now, re- 
mained on in her pain, alone. 


CHAPTER XXXL 
mark’s new plans. 

In the dining-room at thei^ abbey, 
in her black robes, sat Mrs. Cray, at 
the head of her table, her elbow rest- 
ing on it, and a pouting expression on 
her pretty face. Mark was at the 
foot, gobbling down his dinner wit!) 
what haste he could. He had been 
detained so long beyond the dinner 
hour that Mrs. Cray in despair had 
eaten hers ; and when Mark at length 
entered, he found a cold face and a 
cold cutlet. Mrs. Cray was beginning 
to tire of the irregularity. 

“ I can’t help it, Carine,” he said, 
looking at her in a pause of his eating. 
“ My work has been nearly doubled, 
you know, since the doctor died.” 

“But it’s very tiresome, Mark !” 

“ It is. I am nearly sick of it.” 

“ It is not doubled, your work.” 

“ Well, no ; one speaks at random. 
Some of the doctor’s older patients 
have left me : they think, I suppose, 
I am not sufficiently experienced. But 
I have a great deal to do just now ; 
more, in fact, than I can attend to 
properly.” 

Mark resumed his gobbling, and his 
wife watched him, her lips a little 


OSWALD CRAY. 


217 


relaxing. Caroline Cray was one of 
those who must have all things go- 
smoothly ; she could not bear to be 
put out, even in trifles. 

Mr. Wheatley has been here, 
Mark,’^ she presently said. 

“ What did he want 

“ Well, he wanted to see you. 
Something about the selling of my 
uncle’s house.” 

^‘He is losing no time,” observed 
Mark, some acrimony in his tone. 

“ I wonder he didn’t begin about it 
yesterday when we were there, hear- 
ing the will read ! But what have I 
to do with it ?” 

He wants us to take the house — 
to buy it, I think.” 

I dare say he does,” retorted Mark, 
after a pause of surprise. Where’s 
the money to come from ?” 

There’s that money of mine. He 
said it would be a good investment.” 

Did he I I wonder what business 
it is of his ! Carine, my dear, you 
and I are quite capable of managing 
our own affairs, without being dictated 
to.” 

Of course we are !” answered 
Carine, rather firing at the absent 
Mr. Wheatley, as this new view was 
presented to her. 

Mark said no more just then. He 
finished his dinner, and had the things 
taken away. Then, instead of sitting 
down to his wine, his usual custom, 
he stood up on the hearth-rug, as 
though he were cold — or restless. 
Mark Cray had been reared to ex- 
travagance in a petted home, and 
looked for his wine daily, as surely as 
an old alderman looks for it. Oswald 
Cray, reared without a home, and to 
schoolboy fare, adhered still, in a 
general way, to the water, to which 
he had been trained. Oswald’s plan 
was the most profitable, so far as the 
pocket was concerned, and the health 
too. 

‘‘ I say, Carine, I want to go to 
London for a day.” 

To London !” echoed Carine, 
turning her chair to the fire. 

There’s the grandest opening I 
there’s the gratidest opening for a 


fortune to be made there. And — 
Carine — I think I shall quit Halling- 
ham.” 

Mrs. Cray’s violet eyes extended 
themselves in the extreme of wonder. 
She sat staring at him. 

Caroline, I hate the profession, 
and how I came ever to be such' a 
fool as to go into it I cannot under- 
stand,” said Mark, throwing himself 
on a chair as he plunged into con- 
fidence. So long as the. doctor 
lived, I could not well say any thing 
about it ; I did not see my way clear 
to do so. But things have altered 
now, and I think I shall give up 
medical life.” 

But — good gracious, Mark ! — I 
can’t understand,” exclaimed Caroline, 
in her bewilderment. “If you give 
up your profession, you give up our 
means of living. We can’t starve.” 

“ Starve !” laughed Mark. “ Can’t 
you trust me better than that ? Look 
here, Caroline ; let us come to figures. 
I don’t suppose I should clear at first 
above eight hundred a-year, or so, by 
the practice — ” 

“ Oh, Mark ! I’m sure you would 
clear at least a thousand. Think 
what a valuable connection it is !” 

“ Well, I know it is ; but you must 
look at it with its new disadvantages. 
The most lucrative part of your 
uncle’s practice w^s the home con- 
sulting; and of that I shall not get 
much ; and, besides, I couldn’t ex- 
pect my guinea a patient as he had ; 
who’d give it to me ? And then I 
must have an assistant ; I never 
could get through alone ; and heaven 
knows what I should have to pay 
him. All this will take the gilt olf 
the gingerbread. However, put it 
down at a thousand, if you like, for 
argument’s sake. Let us assume that 
I net it clear. It’s a nice income, no 
doubt, but it’s very small by the side 
of three times that. And that’s 
what I shall make if I go into the 
thing in London.” 

Caroline, half doubting, half eager, 
all bewildered, sat waiting to hear 
more. 

“ There’s a splendid opportunity 


218 


OSWALD CRAY. 


offered me if I give up the medical 
profession and embark altogether in a 
new line of life. The concern is in 
London ; that is — ” 

Mrs. Cray interrupted her husband 
with an exclamation of dismay. The 
word had offended her ear. 

‘‘A concern! That means a trade, 
does it not ? Is it a shop ? Mark I 
you’d never do it !” 

'' Oh you great goose I” cried Mark. 

What do I know about trade ? I — 
you have heard me speak of my old 
chum Barker, have you not he 
broke off to ask. 

Barker she repeated. '^Yes, I 
think I remember the name. He got 
into some dreadful trouble, did he 
not, and was put in prison 

Put in prison ! how you speak of 
things ! All that’s over and done 
with. His friends w^ere wretched 
screws, doing him out of money that 
ought to have come to him, and the 
consequence was that Barker got into 
the Queen’s Bench. Half the gen- 
tlemen of England have been there 
some time in their lives,” added Mark, 
loftily, as if he were just then deem- 
ing the thing an honor. Well, Caro- 
line, that was over long ago, and 
Barker has now the most magnificent 
prospect before him that one can well 
imagine ; he will be making his 
thousands and thousands a-year.” 

** How is he going to make it ?” 
asked Caroline. 

‘^And he has offered me a share in 
it,” continued Mark, too eager to at- 
tend to irrelevant questions. ^‘He is 
one who knows how to stand by an 
old friend. Thousands a-year, it 
will be.” 

“ But, Mark, I ask you how he is 
going to make it ?” 

^^It is connected with mines and 
pumping, and all that sort of thing,” 
lucidly explained Mark. 

Mines and pumping !” 

Caroline, dear, you cannot be ex- 
pected to understand these things. 
Enormous fortunes are being made at 
them,” continued Mark in a rapture. 
** Some of the mines yield fifty thou- 


sand pounds profit the first year of 
working. I declare when I first heard 
of Barker’s prospects I was fit to eat 
my fingers off, feeling that I was tied 
down to be a paltry pitiful country 
surgeon. Folks go ahead nowadays, 
Caroline. And, as Barker has gen- 
erously come forward with the offer 
that I should join him, I think I 
ought to accept it in justice to you. 
My share the first year would be 
about three tliousand, he computes.” 

But, Mark, do you mean to say 
that Mr. Barker has offered you three 
thousand a-year for nothing ? I 
don’t comprehend it at all.” 

^^Not for nothing. I should give 
my services, and I should have to 
advance a certain sum at the onset. 
Talk about an investment for your 
money, Caroline, what investment 
would be equal to this ?” 

The words startled her for the 
moment. “ I promised poor Uncle 
Richard that the money should be 
settled upon me, Mark. He said 
he urged it as much for your sake 
as mine.” 

Of course,” said Mark, with 
acquiescent suavity. ‘‘Where there’s 
nothing better to do with money it 
ought always to bo so settled. But 
only look at this opening ! Were 
your Uncle Richard in life, he would 
be the first to advise the investment 
of the money in it. Such chances 
don’t happen every day. Caroline, I 
can’t, and I won’t, humdrum on here, 
buried alive and worked to death, 
when I may take my place in the 
London world, a wealthy man, 
looked up to by society. In your 
interest, I will not.” 

“Are ^the mines in London ?’* 
asked Caroline. 

“ Good gracious, no I But the 
office is, where all the money trans- 
actions are carried on.” 

“And it is quite a sure thing, 
Mark ?” 

“ It’s as sure as the Bank of Eng- 
land. It wants a little capital to set 
it going, that’s all. And that capital 
can be supplied by your money, Caro- 


OSWALD CRAT. 


219 


line, if you will agree to it. Hun- 
dreds of people would jump at the 
chance.” 

An utter tyro in business matters, 
in the ways of a needy world, imbued 
with unbounded faith in her husband, 
Caroline Cray took all in with eager 
and credulous ears. Little more than 
a child, she could be as easily per- 
suaded as one, and she became as 
anxious to realize the good luck as 
Mark. 

Yes, I should think it is what my 
uncle would advise, were he alive,” 
she said. ''And where should we 
live, Mark ?” 

"We’d live at the West End, Carine ; 
somewhere about Hyde Park. You 
should have your open and close car- 
riages, and your saddle-horses and 
servants — every thing as it ought to 
be. No end of good things may be 
enjoyed with three thousand a-year.” 

"Would it stop at three thousand, 
Mark ?” she questioned, with spark- 
ling eyes. 

" I don’t expect it would stop at 
twenty,” coolly asserted Mark. " How 
far it would really go on to, I’m afraid 
to guess. In saying three thousand, 
I have taken quite the minimum of 
the first year’s profits.” 

" Oh, Mark ! don’t let it escape you. 
Write to-night and secure it. How 
do you know but Barker may be giv- 
ing it to somebody else ?” 

She was growing more eager than 
he. In her inexperience she knew 
nothing of such a miserable calamity 
as failure or deceit. Not that her 
husband was purposely deceiving her : 
he fully believed in the good luck he 
spoke of. Mark Cray’s was one of 
those sanguine, roving natures which 
see an immediate fortune in every new 
scheme brought to them — if it be only 
wild enough. 

" How long have you known of this, 
Mark ?” 

" Oh, a month or two. But, as you 
see, I would not stir in it. I should 
like to run up to town for a day to 
meet Barker ; and, on my return, we’d 
set about the arrangements for leav- 
ing. There will be no more lonely 


dinners for you, Carine, once we are 
away from here. I shall not have to 
be beating about all hours and weathers 
from one patient’s door to another, or 
dancing attendance on that precious 
infirmary, knowing that you are sit 
ting at home waiting for me, and the 
meal getting cold.” 

"Oh, Mark! how delightful it will 
be ! And, perhaps, you would never 
have risen into note as my uncle did.” 

"No, I never should. Dr. Dave- 
nal’s heart was in his profession, 
mine — ” 

Mark Cray stopped abruptly. The 
avowal upon his lips had been " mine 
recoils from it.” 

It was even so. He did literally 
recoil from his chosen profession. Un- 
stable in all his ways, Mark had 
become heartily sick of the routine of 
a surgeon’s life. And since the affair 
of* Lady Oswald, a conviction had 
been gradually taking possession of 
him that he was entirely unfitted for 
it. Dr. Davenal had forbidden him 
ever to undertake operations again : 
Mark himself shrank from doing so. 
So long as the doctor lived, there had 
been no necessity for Mark’s perform- 
ing them, the doctor was at hand ; 
but the doctor was gone now, and 
Mark must hold himself in readiness 
for any thing that might be required 
of him. A lively dread was upon 
him — it may, perhaps, be described a 
nervous dread, born, no doubt, of that 
unfortunate event of the past — that he 
might again lose his presence of mind, 
and break down in the critical moment 
when a patient’s life was in his hands. 
This would be horrible, not only for 
the unhappy patient, but for himself ; 
and, without accusing Mark Cray of 
undue inhumanity, it must be acknowl- 
edged that he thought of himself first 
in the matter. To betray his incompe- 
tency, would be to lose caste forever 
in the medical world of Hallingham. 

Mark Cray rose from his %^hair 
again, and stood on the rug as before, 
pushing back his hair from his brow 
incessantly in the restlessness that was 
upon him. He was always restless 
when he thought of that past night ; 


220 


OSWALD C Twi Y. 


or of the certainty that he might at 
any time be called upon to perform 
again what he had failed in then. It 
was not altogether his skill he doubted, 
for Mark Cray was a vain and self- 
sufficient man ; but he felt that the 
very present consciousness of having 
broken down before, would induce a 
nervousness that would cause him in- 
fallibly to break down again. Had it 
been practicable, Mark Cray would 
have taken flight from Ilallingham 
and the medical world that very hour, 
and hid himself from it forever. 

It has become liatef id to me, Ca- 
rine !” 

The words burst from him in the 
fulness of his thoughts. Both had 
been silent for some minutes, and they 
sounded quite startling in their vehe- 
mence. Mrs. Cray looked up at him. 

What do you mean, Mark ? What 
has ? The getting your meals so ir- 
regularly 

X^s,^’ said Mark, evasively. lie 
did not choose to say that it was his 
profession which had become hateful 
to him, lest Mrs. Cray might inquire 
too closely why. 

And, besides all this, had Mark been 
ever so successful in his_ practice, the 
vista opened to him of unlimited 
wealth (and he really so regarded it) 
might have turned a steadier head 
than his. His friend Barker had been 
Markus chum’’ (you are indebted to 
Mark for the epithet) at Guy’s Hos- 
pital, and the intimacy had lasted 
longer than such formed intimacies 
generally do last. Mr. Barker was of 
the same stamp as Mark — hence, per- 
haps, the duration of the friendship ; he 
had practised as a surgeon for a year 
or two and then found it “ too slow,” 
and had tried his hand at something 
else. He had been trying his hand 
at something else and something 
else ever since, and somehow the 
things had dropped through one after 
the qther with various degrees of 
failure, one effect of which had been 
to land Mr. Barker within the friendly 
walls of a debtor’s prison. But he 
had come on his legs again : such 
men generally do ; and he was now in 


high feather as the promoter of a grand 
mining company. It \vas this he had 
invited Mark to embark in ; he wrote 
him the most glowdng accounts of the 
fabulous sums of money to be realized 
from it ; he bf‘lieved in them himself ; 
he was, I have said, exactly the same 
sort of man as Mark. 

One little drawback had recently 
presented itself ; a want of ready 
money. Of course it was not much 
felt, considering the loads that were 
coming in in prospective ; but it might 
be as well to get some if possible. 
Mark, in his eagerness, offered the sum 
coming to his wife from the Chancery 
suit ; they were expecting it to be 
paid over daily ; and Mr. Barker was 
in raptures, and painted his pictures 
of the future in colors gorgeous as 
those of a Claude Lorraine. Caroline 
might have felt a little startled, had 
she known that Mark had already 
promised the money, without so much 
as. consulting her. But Mark had 
chosen to take his own time to consult 
her, and Mark was doing it now. 
Perhaps he had felt it might be more 
decent to let poor Dr. Davenal be put 
under the ground, before he spoke of 
applying the money in a way so dia- 
metrically opposed to his last wishes. 

Mark,” she asked, “ how much 
does Mr. Barker get by this ? At 
present, I mean.” 

I don’t know. I suppose they 
have hardly begun to realize yet. It 
will not be in full work, I expect,' 
until I join it. He’s a regular good 
fellow, and is holding back for nlo.” 

“ He says it will be good ?” 

Good I” echoed Mark. Stop, I’ll 
read you his last letter, the one I re- 
ceived this morning.” 

He drew a letter from the pocket 
of his pantaloons and read out its 
glowing promises. Mr. Barker was 
evidently fervent in his belief of the 
future. Caroline listened as one in a 
joyous dream : and the imaginary 
scene then dancing before her eyes, of 
their future greatness, rivalled any of 
the scenes of fairyland. 

You see,” said Mark, ^‘Barker — 
who’s that ?” 


OSWALD OKAY. 


The entrance of a visitor into the 
hall had caused the interruption. 
Caroline bent her ear to listen. 

is Aunt Bettina I^^she exclaimed. 

I am sure it is her voice, Mark. 
Whatever brings her here to-night V' 

Mark crunched the letter into his 
pocket again. '‘Mind, Caroline, not 
a word of this to her he exclaimed, 
laying his hand on his wife as she was 
rising. “It is not quite ready to be 
talked of yet.^^ 

Miss Davenal came in. She greeted 
them, and then entered at once upon 
the subject which had brought her — 
their quitting the abbey for the other 
house. Mark understood she had 
come, as it were, officially ; to fix 
time and place and means ; and he 
had no resource but to tell her that he 
did not intend to enter upon it; did 
not intend to embark Caroline’s money 
in any such purpose ; did not, in fact, 
intend to remain in Hallingham. 

There ensued a battle : it was noth- 
ing less. What with Miss DavenaPs 
indignation and what with Miss Dave- 
naPs deafness, the wordy war that 
supervened could be called little else. 
Caroline sat pretty quiet at first, ven- 
turing to take her husband’s side now 
and then. 

“ You tell me yon are going to leave 
Hallingham, and you won’t tell me 
where you are going^or what you are 
going to do, Mark- uray !” reiterated 
Miss Davenal. 

“ I’ll tell you more about it when I 
know more myself.” 

“ But 3^ou can tell me what it is ; 
you can tell me where it is. Is it at 
one of the London hospitals ?” 

“It is in London,” was Mark’s 
answer, allowing the hospital to be 
assumed. 

“ Then, Mark Cray, you are very 
wicked. And you” — turning to Caro- 
line — “are foolish to uphold him in it. 
How can you think of giving it up, 
such a practice as this ?” 

“ I am tired of Hallingham,” avowed 
Mark, with blunt truth, for he was 
getting vexed. 

“ You are — what ?” cried Miss 
Davenal, not catching the words. 


221 

“ Sick and tired of Hallingham. 
And I don’t care who knows it.” 

Miss Davenal looked at him with 
some curiosity. “ Is he gone out of 
his senses, Caroline ?” 

“ I am tired of Hallingham, too, 
aunt,” said Caroline, audaciously. “ I 
want to live in London.” 

“And the long and the short of it is, 
that we mean to live in London, Miss 
Bettina,” avowed Mark. “ There. I 
don’t care that my talents should be 
buried in a poking country place any 
longer.” 

She looked from one to the other 
of them; she could not take it in. 
Sharp anger was rendering her ears 
somewhat more open than usual. 

“ Buried ! — a poking country place ! 
and what of the twelve or fifteen hun- 
dred a-year practice that you would 
lightly throw away, Mark Cray ?” 

“ Oh, I shall do better than that in 
London. I have got a post offered 
me. worth double that.” 

She paused a few moments. “And 
what are you to give for it ?” 

“ Never mind that,” said Mark. 

“Yes, never mind that,” rejoined 
Miss Bettina in a tone of bitter sar- 
casm. “ When it comes to details, 
you can take refuge in 'never mind.’ 
Do you suppose such posts are given 
away for nothing, Mark Cray ? Who 
has been befooling you ?” 

“But it will not be given for noth- 
ing,” cried Caroline, betrayed to the 
injudicious avowal by the partizanship 
of her husband. “ The money that is 
coming to me will be devoted to it.” 

This was the climax. Miss Bettina 
Davenal was very wroth ; wroth, how- 
ever, more in sorrow than in anger. 
In vain she strove to sift the affair to 
the bottom ; Mark had baffled her 
questions, baffled her indignant curi- 
osity, and it must be confessed — his 
wife helped him. 

She — Miss Bettina — turned away 
in the midst of the storm. She took 
up her black gloves, the only article of 
attire that she had removed, and drew 
them on her trembling hands. In the 
shaking of the hands alone did Bettina 
Davenal ever betray emotion ; those 


222 


OSWALD CRAY. 


firm, white, rather bony hands, usually 
so still and self-possessed. 

Marcus Cray, as surely as you are 
standing now before me, you will rue 
this work if you carry it out. When 
that day shall come, I beg you — I beg 
yoUj Caroline — to remember that I 
warned you of it.^^ 

She passed out without another 
word, and stalked down the lighted 
street uncomfortably upright, Neal 
behind her with his ginger tread. 
Midway betw^een the abbey and her 
own home (it was the corner just be- 
fore coming to the market place) she 
encountered Mr. Oswald Cray. 

He lifted his hat half as if he would 
have borne on ; he was in deep thought, 
but Miss Davenal stopped and held 
out her hand. 

“ I was thinking of you at this very 
moment, Mr. Oswald Cray. I was 
saying to myself that if anybody could 
wean your brother Marcus out of this 
wicked imprudence, it might be you ; 
nay, I would say shame him out of it.’’ 

What is the matter with him ? 
What is he doing ?” asked Oswald, all 
in wonder. 

’ Miss Davenal paused. Either she 
did not hear the question or she took 
time to recover herself to reply to it. 
Her face was very pale, her cold gray 
eyes glittered like steel in the lamp- 
light. 

My poor brother has died young, 
and left this valuable practice in Mark’s 
hands. There are not many like unto 
it. The house is ready to be offered 
to him ; altogether, the career spread- 
ing out before him is a fine one. And 
he is talking of throwing it up. He 
is going to fling it from him as a child 
flings a pebble away into the sea. He 
says he shall quit Hallingham.” 

Quit Hallingham !” repeated Os- 
wald Cray, the last words of what she 
said alone making their full impression 
on him in his bewildered surprise. 
“ Mark says he shall quit Halling- 
ham ?” 

“ He has some wild-goose scheme 
in his head of setting up in practice in 
London,” said Miss Davenal, speaking 


in accordance with the notion she had 
erroneousl}^ assumed. “ It is some- 
thing he is about to purchase. He is 
going to purchase it with that money 
of Caroline’s. But he has as surely 
lost his senses as that we are here.” 

I cannot understand it,” said Os- 
wald. '‘No man in his senses would 
abandon such a practice as this.” 

“Just so. But I tell you he is not 
in his senses ; he cannot be. I do 
not understand it any more than you. 
Perhaps you will see him ?” 

“ I will. I am going there now. 
I hav^e been calling at your house. 
Miss Davenal. Now that I have 
met you, will you let me express my 
deep sympathy in your sorrow for the 
loss you have sustained.” 

“ Thank you, sir. It has been the 
greatest blow I could have experi- 
enced, and if I have not shown it 
much outwardly — for it is not in my 
nature to show such — it has done its 
work on my heart. There are few 
men who could not have been spared 
in Hallingham better than Dr. Dav- 
nal.” 

“It is frequently the case,” said 
Oswald, half abstractedl}^ “that those 
whom we think we could the least 
spare, are taken. Fare you well. 
Miss Davenal.” 

For Miss Davenal had turned as if 
in a hurry to be gone. She walked 
away towards home in her usual 
stately fashion, the attentive Neal, 
whose apparently closed ears had 
been regaled to their content, behind 
her, after respectfully saluting Mr. 
Oswald Cray. 

He, Oswald Cray, strode on to the 
abbey, the strange news just com- 
municated puzzling him much. He 
did not take Mark at a disadvantage, 
as Miss Davenal had done. When he 
entered, Mark was all cool and easy, 
having had time to collect his wits 
and resolve on his course of action. 
That course was, not to open his lips 
about the scheme on hand to any 
other living mortal until it was ripe 
and ready to be acted upon. Miss 
Davenal’s communication to Oswald 


OSWALD CRAY. 


223 


rendered this somewhat difficult, but 
Mark did not stand on an evasion or 
two. 

He was exceedingly surprised to 
see Oswald, not knowing that he was 
at Hallingham, and Caroline gave a 
little scream when he came in, in her 
pretty and somewhat affected manner. 
Oswald explained that he had not 
come from London, but from another 
part of the country, and had alighted 
at Hallingham for two or three hours 
only as he passed through it. He 
then entered upon the strange news 
just communicated to him. 

But Mark had his answer ready at 
hand. He talked in a mocking tone 
about busybodies,” he ridiculed Miss 
DavenaPs deafness, saying that she 
generally heard things ‘^double:” 
altogether, he contrived to blind Os- 
wald, to convince him that the whole 
thing was a fable ; or, rather, a mis- 
take, partly arising from Miss Dave- 
naPs infirmity, partly from a desire on 
Lis own part to “ chaff’^ her for her 
interference. How Mark Cray recon- 
ciled this to his sense of honor, let 
him answer. 

And Oswald, perfectly truthful him- 
self, never doubted his half-brother. 
But he did not wholly quiet the topic. 
He spoke of the few words written to 
him by Dr. Davenal when he was 
dying, and their purport — that he, 
Oswald, should urge the settlement 
of Mrs. Cray’s own money upon her. 
Though of course, Oswald added, 
there was no necessity for him to do 
so : Mark would naturally see for him- 
self that it was the only thing to be 
done with it. 

Of course he saw it, testily an- 
swered Mark, who was growing 
cross. 

I cannot think how Miss Davenal 
could have misunderstood you as she 
did,’’ proceeded Oswald. She actu- 
ally said that this money of Mrs. 
Cray’s was to be applied to the pur- 
chase of the new thing in London in 
which you were proposing to em- 
bark.” 

Did she !” returned Mark, in a 
tone that one impudent schoolboy re- 


torts upon another. I do wonder, 
Oswald, that you should listen to the 
rubbish picked up by a deaf woman I” 
The wonder is, how she could 
so misunderstand,” returned Oswald. 
^‘But I am heartily glad it is not so. 
Miss Davenal assumed that you rnust 
be out of your senses, Mark,” he 
added, a smile crossing his lips : I 
fear I must have arrived at the same 
conclusion had you really been enter- 
taining the notion of quitting Halling- 
ham and throwing up such a practice 
as this.” 

“ I wish to goodness people would 
mind their own business I” exclaimed 
Mark, who was losing his good man- 
ners in his vexation. The communi- 
cation to his wife of his new scheme 
had been so smoothly accomplished, 
that the sudden interruption of Miss 
Davenal and now of Oswald Cray 
seemed all too like a checkmate ; and 
Mark felt as a stag driven to bay. 
am old enough to regulate my own 
affairs without Miss Davenal,” he 
continued, ‘‘and I want none of her 
interference.” 

Oswald did not speak. 

“ And, what’s more, I won’t stand 
it,” resumed Mark ; “ either from her 
or from any one. There I And, Os- 
wald, I hope you will excuse my 
saying it : although you are ray elder 
brother, and may deem you have a 
right to dictate to me.” 

“ The right to advise as a friend 
only, Mark,” was the reply, somewhat 
pointedly spoken. “ Never to dictate.” 

Mark growled. 

“ With this valuable practice be- 
fore you, Mark, it may appear to you 
quite a superfluous precaution to se- 
cure the money to your wife and 
children,” persisted Oswald. “But 
the chances and changes of life are so 
great, overwhelming families when 
least expected, that it behooves us all 
to guard those we love against them 
as far as we have the power.” 

“ Do you suppose I should not do 
the best for my wife that I can do ?” 
asked Mark. “ She knows I would. 
Be at ease, Oswald,” he added in an 
easy tone, of which Oswald detected 


224 


OSWALD CRAY. 


not the banter, when Caroline’s 
money shall be paid over, I’ll send 
you notice of it. Talking of money, 
don’t you think the doctor made a 
strange will ?” 

“ I have not heard any thing about 
his wdll,” replied Oswald. He has 
died very well off, I suppose ?” 

We don’t think he has died well 
off,” interposed Caroline. “ I and 
Mark can’t quite make it out, and 
they do not treat us with much confi- 
dence in the matter. Whatever there 

is, is left to Sara.” 

To Sara ?” 

Every stick and stone,” returned 
Caroline, her cheeks assuming that 
lovely color that excitement was apt 
to bring to them, and which, to a 
practised eye, might have suggested 
a suspicion of something not sound in 
the constitution. All the property 
he died possessed of is to be sold, 
even to the household furniture ; and 
the money realized from it goes to 
Sara.” 

And the son — Captain Davenal ?” 

“ There’s nothing left to him ; not 
a penny piece.. His name is not so 
much as mentioned in the will.” 

Oswald looked as though he could 
not believe it. He had thought that 
of all men Dr. Davenal would have 
been incapable of making an unjust 
will. 

“ Look here, Oswald,-” interrupted 
Mark, speaking in that half- whispered 
tone that is so suggestive of mystery, 
“there’s something under all this that 
we can’t fathom. Caroline overheard 
some words dropped by Miss Davenal 
to the effect that Sara was left de- 
pendent upon her, quite entirely de- 
pendent ” 

“But how can that be?” inter- 
rupted Oswald. “ Have you not just 
said that the whole property is willed 
to her?” 

“ True : but Miss Davenal did say 

it. It is all queer together,” conclud- 
ed Mark. “Why should he have 
willed it all to Sara, excluding Ed- 
ward ? And why should Miss Dav- 
enal assert, as she did, that Sara 
would be penniless and must have a 


home with herself ? I am sure I and 
Carolipe don’t want their confidence,” 
continued Mark, in a tone of resent- 
ment that was sufficient to betray he 
did want it. “ But I say it’s a queer 
will altogether. Nothing left to Ed- 
ward, when it’s well known the doc- 
tor loved him as the apple of his eye ! 
Every sixpence that can be realized 
by the sales is to go to Sara ; to be 
paid into her hands absolutely, with- 
out the security of trustees, or guar- 
dian, or any thing. But as to his 
having died the wealthy man that he 
w^as thought to-be, it is quite a mis- 
take. So far as w^e can make out, 
there w^as no money laid by at all.” 

Oswald did not care to pursue the 
theme. The disposal of Dr. Dave- 
nal’s property was nothing to him ; 
and if he could not help a suspicion 
crossing his mind as to how the laid- 
by gains of years had been spent, it 
wms certainly not his intention to 
enlighten his brother Marcus. Neal 
had hinted at hush money months 
ago, and the hint w^as haunting Os- 
wald now. 

“ Was it not a sudden death at the 
last ?” exclaimed Caroline. 

“Yery,” said Osw^ald. “It must 
have been a sad shock for you all. I 
am sure your c.ousin feels it much.” 

“ Sara ? Well, I don’t know. I 
don’t think she feels it more than I 
do. She seems as still and calm as a 
statue. She never shed a tear yes- 
terday when the will w^as being read : 
and I am sure she listened to it. I 
never heard a word for my sobs.” 

But for the melancholy subject, 
Osw^ald would have smiled at Caro- 
line’s faith in her own depth of grief. 
She had yet to learn the signs of real 
sorrow. 

“ She is not demonstrative, I think,” 
he observed, alluding to Sara. 

“ She never w^as,” returned Caro- 
line : “ and therefore I argue that 
there can be no real feeling. I have 
gone into hysterics ten times since 
the death, only thinking of it, as Mark 
knows : and I question if anybody 
has so much as seen Sara cry. I 
said to her yesterday, ^ How collected 


OSWALD CRAY. 


225 


you are ! how you seem to think of 
every thing for the future ^ Yes/ 
she answered, in a dreamy sort of 
way, * I have got work to do ; I have 
got work to do.’ I don’t know why 
it should be,” continued Mrs. Cray, 
after a pause, “ but in the last few 
months Sara seems to have altered so 
much ; to have turned grave before 
her time. It is as though all her youth 
had gone out of her.” 

Oswald rose : He believed his 
mission had been accomplished — that 
there was no doubt of Mark’s invest- 
ing his wife’s money for her benefit in 
accordance with the doctor’s wishes. 
They pressed him to remain and take 
some tea, but he declined : he was re- 
turning to town that night. His 
last words to his half-brother proved 
how completely he was astray. 

Mark, it would be only kind of 
you to set Miss Davenal right. I am 
sure the misapprehension was causing 
her serious pain.” 

I’ll attend to her,” rejoined Mark, 
with a careless laugh, as he went 
with him to the hall door. Good- 
night, Oswald. A safe journey to 
you I” 

Mark returned to his wife. He 
had not quite liked to use that delib- 
erate deceit to Oswald Cray in her 
presence. But Mark was ingenious 
in sophistries, in that kind of logic 
which tends to ** make the worse ap- 
pear the better reason,” and Caroline 
put full faith in him as she listened to 
his half apology, half explanation. 

“ It would never have done to en- 
lighten /um,” observed Mark. What 
I have said I said for your sake, 
Carine. Oswald is one who would 
rather let a man plod on for years on 
bread and cheese, than see him make 
a dash and raise himself at once to in- 
dependence. He’s a slow-going fellow 
himself, and thinks everybody else 
ought to be 1” . 

And, propping his back against the 
side of the mantel-piece, Mark Cray 
enlarged upon all the grandeur and 
glory of the prospect opening to him, 
painting its future scenes in colors 
so brilliant that his wife lost herself 

14 


in a trance of admiration, and wished 
it could all be realized with the morn- 
ing light. 

♦ 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

ENTERING ON A NEW HOME. 

For once London was bright. A 
glorious spring day late in March had 
gladdened the spirits of the metro- 
politan world, dreary with the fogs 
and rains of the passing winter, and 
as the street passengers looked up at 
the clear blue sky, and the shining 
sun, they said to each other that the 
day was a foretaste of summer. 

The sun drew to its setting, and 
its red rays fell on the terminus of 
the Great Western Railway at Padd- 
ington ; on all the bustle and confu- 
sion of a train just in. Amidst the 
various vehicles driving out of the 
station with their freight, was a cab 
containing two ladies dressed in deep 
mourning, one of whom, the elder, 
had not recovered from the pushing 
about to which she had been subjected 
in the confusion of arrival, and was 
protesting that she should not recover 
it, and that there ought to be arrange- 
ments made to protect lady-travellers 
from such treatment. On the box 
beside the driver was a — was he a 
gentleman, or was he a servant ? If 
the Jatter, he was certainly a most 
superior one in looks, but the idle 
people standing about and casting 
their eyes up to the passing cabs were 
taking him no doubt for the former. 
The luggage piled up on the top of 
the cab and on the front seat of the 
inside, seemed to say that these 
travellers had come from a distance. 

In point of fact, they had come from 
Hallingham, for they were no other 
than Miss Davenal and her niece, and 
the gentleman on the box was Neal. 
Miss Davenal kept up her chorus of 
complaint. It had begun with the 
discomforts attendant on the arrival of 
a large train at the terminus, and it 
would be continued^ there was little 


226 


OSWALD CRAY. 


doubt, for many a day ; for though 
Miss 13ettina had come to London by 
her own free decision, she had come 
sorely against her will. 

Jostling ! pushing ! hustling ! 
roaring ! It is a shame that ladies 
should be subjected to such. Why 
don’t they manage things better ?” 

“ But, Aunt Bettina, you need not 
have been in the bustle. If you had 
but seated yourself in the cab, as Neal 
suggested, and allowed him to see after 

the luggage ” 

Hold your tongue, Sara. What 
was one pair of eyes to look after all 
the luggage we have got ? I chose 
to see to it as well as Neal : and I say 
that the way you get pushed about is 
shameful. My firm belief is, we have 
lost at least ten of the smaller pack- 
ages.” 

“ No, no, aunt, they are all here ; I 
counted them as they were brought to 
the cab.” 

“Yes, that’s about all you are good 
for ! counting the cabs ! I’d spend my 
moments to a little more purpose. 
Good heavens ! we shall be run down I 
If this is London, I wish I had never 
heard of it.” 

The cab threaded its way amidst the 
crowded streets until it drew up before 
a small house in Pimlico, small as com- 
pared with their house at home. Miss 
Davenal looked up at it and gave a 
groan ; and Neal opened the cab door. 

“ Is this the place, Neal ? It is 
dreadfully small.” • 

“ I think you will find it convenient, 
ma’am. *It is better inside than out.” 

Better inside than out I It was 
new and fresh and pleasant looking ; 
but to poor Miss Davenal it appeared, 
as she had said, dreadfully small. Sara 
seemed less disagreeably impressed. 
She had not anticipated great things ; 
and it was of very little consequence 
to her where she lived now. In reality 
it was rather a nice house, of moderate 
size ; but Miss Davenal was estimating 
it by comparison — as we all estimate 
things. 

She turned herself about in the 
small passage in dismay. A door on 
the left led into the parlor, the room 


they would use for dining ; about four 
such could have been put into the 
dining-room at Hallingham. The 
staircase would not admit of two 
abreast ; and right in front of it, at the 
top, was the drawing-room, a light, 
cheerful apartment, with one large 
window. The furniture in these 
rooms was Miss Davenal ’s, and it 
crowded them inconveniently. 

Dorcas, she who had lived at the 
abbey with Mrs. Cray, stood there 
with a smiling face to receive them ; 
and the landlady, an humble sort of 
person in a green stufl' gown, who 
had the pleasure of residing in the 
back kitchen and sleeping in the attic, 
came forward also. The greater 
portion of the house had been taken 
unfurnished for Miss Davenal. 

“About the bed-rooms, Dorcas ?” 
inquired Miss Davenal, in a half- 
frightened tone. “Which is mine ?” 

“Which you please to choose, 
ma’am,” was Dorcas’s answer. “The 
two best chambers are the one behind 
the drawing-room, and the one over 
the drawing-room.” 

The room over the drawing-room 
was the largest and best, but Miss 
Davenal did not like so many stairs,* 
and resigned it to Sara. She, Miss 
Davenal, turned herself about in the 
small back room as she had done in 
the passage : her own spacious cham- 
ber at home was all too present to 
her, and she wondered whether she 
should ever become reconciled to this. 

Had any one told her a few short 
months before — nay, a few short ^ 
weeks — that she should ever take up 
her abode in London, she had rejected 
the very idea as absurd, almost an 
impossibility. Yet here she was I 
come to it of her own decision, of her 
own accord, but in one sense terribly 
against her will. 

Marcus Cray had carried out his 
plans. To the intense astonishment 
of Hallingham, he had rejected the 
valuable practice which had become 
his by the death of Dr. Davenal, and 
his mode of relinquishing it had been 
a most foolish one. Whether he 
1 feared the remonstrances of his brother^ 


OSWALD CRAY. 


227 


the reproaches of Miss Davenal, or 
the interference of other friends of his 
wife, certain it is that Mark in dispos- 
ing of the practice had gone unwisely 
to work. A practice such as Dr. 
Davenal’s, if placed properly in the 
market, would have brought forth 
a host of men eager to be the pur- 
chasers, and to offer a fair and just 
sum for it. But of this Mark Cray 
allowed no chance. He privately 
negotiated with a friend of his, a Mr. 
Berry, and sold him the good-will for 
little more than an old song. 

In vain Miss Davenal said cutting 
things to Mark ; in vain Oswald Cray, 
when the real truth reached him, 
came hastening down from London, 
in doubt whether Mark had not gone 
mad. They could not undo the con- 
tract. It was signed and sealed, and 
Mr. Berry had paid over the purchase- 
money. 

Then Mark spoke out upon the 
subject of his London prospects, and 
enlarged upon their brilliancy until 
Miss Davenal herself was for the 
moment dazzled. She urged on Mark 
the justice of his resigning to Dr. 
DavenaPs daughter part of this pur- 
chase-money; Mark evaded it. His 
agreement with Dr. Davenal, he said, 
was to pay to his daughter three 
hundred pounds per annum for five 
years ; and provided he did pay it, it 
could be of no consequence whether 
he made it by doctoring or by other 
means : he should fulfil his bargain, 
and that was enough. 

Mark seemed to have it all his own 
way. The money expected by his 
wife was paid over to him, and he 
kept it. It was a great deal less than 
had been expected, for chancery had 
secured its own slice out of the pie ; 
but it was rather more than four 
thousand pounds. Mark was deaf to 
all suggestions, all entreaties ; he 
completely ignored the last wishes of 
Dr^ Davenal; turned round on Os- 
wald, and flatly told him it was no 
business of his ; and carried the money 
to London in his pocket, when he and 
Caroline quitted Hallingham. 

They quitted it in haste and hurry, 


long before things were ripe and ready 
for them in London, Mark saying to 
his wife that the sooner they were 
out of that hornet’s nest the better — 
by which term he probably dis- 
tinguished Miss Davenal and a few 
others who had considered themselves 
privileged to interfere, so far as re- 
monstrance went. Caroline more than 
seconded his wishes, all he did : Mark 
had imbued her with his own rose- 
colored views of the future, and she 
was eager to enter on its brightness. 

But Caroline was not destitute of 
feeling, and she sobbed on her Aunt 
Bettina’s neck when she came to say 
farewell. If ever a doubt of the 
future crossed her mind, it was in 
that moment — the slightest shade of 
doubt, given rise to by the solemnly 
prophetic warning of Bettina Davenal. 

You and Mark would do well to 
stay, even now : as surely as you go, 
Caroline, you go to your ruin.” ' 

But the doubt passed away with 
the emotion, and Caroline laughed 
heartily with Mark afterwards at 
croaking Aunt Bettina. Mark him- 
self had paid a farewell visit to a very 
few favored patients, and let them 
into the secret that he was going to 
make his fortune. And so they left 
in high spirits and with flying colors, 
Caroline condescendingly telling Sara 
that she should invite her to spend a 
month with them when they were 
settled. 

The next to look out for a home 
was Miss Bettina Davenal. The 
sales and affairs had not been arranged 
so quickly as Mr. Wheatley in his in- 
experience had anticipated, and there 
had been no immediate hurry for the 
house to be vacated. A surgeon in 
the town was in treaty for it, and the 
furniture would have to be sold by 
auction. Sara wondered that her 
aunt did not fix upon a residence, and 
she feared all would be scuffle and 
bustle when they came to leave. 

But Bettina Davenal had been fixing 
upon one in her own mind; at least 
upon the locality for one — and that was 
London. Never willingly did Bettina 
Davenal forego a duty, however un- 


228 


OSWALD CRAY. 


palatable it might be, and she did be- 
lieve it to be her duty to follow the 
fortunes of Caroline, and not abandon 
her entirely to the mercy of her impru- 
dent, thoughtless husband. To quit 
Hallingham, the home of her whole 
life, would be a cruel trial ; but — she 
thought she ought to do it. And she 
bestowed a few bitter words upon the 
absent Mark for inducing the necessity. 

I shall go to London,” she sud- 
denly observed to Sara one afternoon 
as they sat in silence in the large 
drawing-room ; and it may as well be 
observed that her manner to Sara had 
never relaxed from the cold severity it 
had assumed after the death of Dr. 
Davenal. 

To London !” echoed Sara, as much 
surprised as though her aunt had said 
to Londonderry. 

I cannot leave Caroline alone. 
Mark will bring her to rack and ruin if 
he is left to himself.” 

“ Do you mean — go to London to 
live, aunt ?” returned Sara, not believ- 
ing she could mean it. 

“Yes, Ido. What have you to say 
against it that you are Rooking like 
that ? I suppose you can live in Lon- 
don if you try 

“ I ? — I do not care where I live,” 
was the answer, and even Miss Dave- 
nal was struck with its subdued tone. 
“ I was thinking of you. Aunt Bettina. 
Shall you like to quit Hallingham ?” 

“ No, I shall not like to quit it,” 
was the answer, all too redolent of 
pain. “ I have had my troubles in this 
world, Sara Davenal, but none that I 
have felt more keenly than I shall feel 
that. The day of my departure from 
it will be a bitter one.” 

“ But, aunt — I am only thinking of 
you when I speak — what good can 
you do Caroline by going to London ?” 

“ I can give an eye to Mr. Mark.” 

Sara wondered how, or to what end. 
“ They will be too grand to caVe for 
us, aunt : if what Mark says of his 
prospects be true.” 

“ If !” slightingly spoke Miss Bet- 
tina. “ And if it should prove so, he 
will spend every shilling in folly, as 
his father did before him, never think- 


ing of what he has to pay the next five 
years to you. It is necessary that 
somebody should look after it for you, 
and there^s nobody but me. No, I 
have made up my mind — for both your 
sakes I shall remove to London.” 

And accordingly Miss Bettina set 
about her plans. If there was one 
quality she was distinguishable for 
above all others, it was obstinacy. 
Obstinate she was at all times, but iu 
the cause of right or duty she could be 
unflinchingly so. Watton, their former 
upper-maid, was established in her 
new situation as house-keeper in a 
house of business in St. PauPs Church- 
yard, and Miss Davenal wrote to her 
and requested her to look out for a 
house or for a portion of one, and let 
her know about it. Mr. and Mrs. 
Cray had taken a house in Grosvenor 
Place, facing the Green Park, and Miss 
Davenal wished to be as near to them 
as her pocket would allow. 

Watton attended to her commission. 
She thought that part of a handsome 
house would be more suitable to Miss 
DavenaPs former position than the 
whole of an inferior one, and she did 
her best. Miss Davenal found it, as 
you have seen, any thing but hand- 
some ; but she had little notion of the 
prices asked in London, and she had 
limited Watton as to the house-rent 
she was to offer. Neal was sent up 
to London with the furniture, which 
had been warehoused for so many 
years ; and when he returned to Hal- 
lingham, Dorcas took his place in 
London. Discharged by Mrs. Cray, 
who had not chosen to take country 
servants with her, she had been re- 
engaged by Miss Davenal, whose 
modest household was henceforth to 
comprise only Dorcas and Neal. Miss 
Davenal would not part with Neal if 
she could help it ; but she had been 
surprised at the man^s ready agree- 
ment to stay in so reduced an estab- 
lishment. 

And so, before things were quite in 
readiness for them. Miss Davenal and 
Sara had come up. The furniture in 
the house at Hallingham was being 
prepared for public sale, and they has- 


OSWALD CRAY. 


229 


tened away, not to witness the dese- 
cration. How coldly and chilly this 
new home struck upon both, they 
alone could tell. Neither slept through 
the first night, and they arose in the 
morning alike unrefreshed. 

Breakfast over, Sara stood at the 
window. In their immediate situation 
all the houses were private ones, but 
from a proximate corner she could 
see the bustle of the high road with 
the omnibuses passing up and down. 
The day was bright, as the previous one 
had been, and all the world was astir. 

And now for Mark and Caroline,’’ 
said Bettina. 

It had been Miss DavenaPs pleasure 
that Mark Cray and his wife should 
be kept in ignorance of this emigra- 
tion of hers to London. Neal, during 
his brief sojourn there, and Dorcas 
afterwards, had been enjoined to keep 
strictly clear of the vicinity of their 
house. Having no motive to disobey, 
they had complied with the orders ; 
and Mr. and Mrs. Cray were yet in 
total ignorance that their relatives 
were so near. 

She put on her things and went out, 
Neal as usual in attendance. Neal 
was well acquainted with the geogra- 
phy of the place, and piloted his mis- 
tress to the house in a few minutes’ 
time : a handsome house, with stone 
steps and pillars before the door. Miss 
Davenal gazed at it with drawn-in lips. 

It cannot be this, Neal.” 

Yes, ma’am, it is. Shall I ring ?” 

Miss Davenal pushed forward and 
rang herself, an imperative peal. 
What right had they, she was asking 
herself, to venture on so expensive a 
house as this must be ? A footman 
flung open the door. 

“ Does Mr. Cray live here ?” 

^^Yes,” said the footman, with a 
lofty air : as of course it was incum- 
bent on him to put on to anybody so 
dead to good manners as to call at 
that early hour. What might your 
business be ?” 


None could put down insolence 
more effectually than Bettina Dave- 
nal. She gave the man a look and 
swept past him. 

Show me to Mrs. Cray, man.” 

And somehow the man was sub- 
dued to do as he was bid, and to ask 
quite humbly, '' What name, ma’am ?” 

Miss Davenal.” 

He opened the door of a room on 
the right, and Miss Davenal, never 
more haughty, never more stately, 
stepped into it. She saw it was of 
good proportions, she saw it was ele- 
gantly furnished ; and Caroline, in a 
flutter of black ribbons on her pretty 
morning toilette, was sitting toying 
with a late breakfast. 

She started up with a scream. 
Believing that the lady before her 
was safe at Hallingham, perhaps the 
scream was excusable. 

'' Aunt I Is it really you ? What 
can bring you to London ?” 

Miss Bettina neglected the question 
to survey the room again. She had 
surveyed the hall as she came in ; she 
caught a glimpse of another room at 
the back : all fitted up for a duke and 
duchess. 

Where’s Mark Cray ?” she cried. 

Mark has gone out ages ago, aunt. 
He is deep in business now. The 
operations have begun.” 

Who took this house ?” grimly 
asked Miss Bettina. 

I and Mark.” 

And what did the furniture cost ?” 

Oh, I don’t know. I don’t think 
Mark has had the bills in yet. Why, 
aunt ?” 

Why!^^ returned the indignant 
lady, in a blaze of anger. You and 
your husband are one of two things, 
Caroline ; swindlers or idiots. If you 
think that strong language, I cannot 
help it.” 

“ Aunt Bettina I” echoed the start- 
led girl, what are you saying ?” 

'' The truth,” solemnly replied Miss 
Bettina. 


230 


OSWALD CRAY. 


CHAPTER XXXIIL 

HOPE DEFERRED. 

The beautiful summer weather had 
come, and the June sun was hot upon 
the streets. In fact, June had come 
in with that intense heat that we 
generally get only in July and August. 

Sara Davenal stood at her chamber 
window looking out upon the dusty 
road. Xot in reality seeing it; for 
the trouble and perplexity at her 
heart had not lessened, and she had 
fallen into that habit of gazing out- 
wards in deep thought, and noticing 
nothing. The same habit had char- 
acterized Dr. Davenal ; but at his 
daughter's age he had never known 
any weight of care : for years and 
years his path had been a smooth 
one — little else than sunshine. She 
gazed outwards on the dusty road, on 
the white pavement, glistening again 
with its heat, but saw nothing. A 
lookeivon would have said she was an 
idle girl, standing there taking note 
of her neighbors^ and the street^s 
doings : of the tradespeople calling 
at the opposite houses, of the servant 
girls flirting with them as they gave 
their orders : of the water-cart splash- 
ing past the corner along the public 
highway, but neglecting this quiet 
nook : of every thing in short there 
was to see and be seen. How mis- 
taken that looker-on w^as, he could 
never know. Poor Sara Davenal 
might have been the sole living ob- 
ject on a broad desert plain, for all she 
saw. of the moving panorama around 
her. 

Hope deferred maketh the heart 
sick I” when that proverb of the wise 
King of Israel comes practically home 
to our hearts in all its stern reality, 
we have learnt one of the many 
bitter lessons of life. Perhaps few 
have realized it more intensely than 
Sara Davenal had latterly been obliged 
to realize it. From March to April, 
from April to May, from May to 
June, week by week, and morning by 
morning, ^he had been waiting for 
something that never came. 


A very short while to wait for 
any thing, some of you may be think- 
ing ; not much more than two months 
at the most, for it is only the begin- 
ning of the blooming summer month, 
and they had come to London late in 
March. But — I believe I said the 
same a chapter or two ago — a space 
of time is Igjng or short according as 
we estimate it. Two months’ space 
may pass lightly over us as a fleeting 
summer’s day ; or it may drag its 
slow length along, every minute of it 
marking its flight upon our sick and 
weary hearts, with enough of agony 
crowded into it to serve for a life- 
time. 

Sara and Miss Bettina had come 
up in March, and the things at Hal- 
lingham were to be sold within a few 
days of their departure ; and in a few 
days after that, Sara had, expected the 
money would be paid over to her. In 
her inexperience, she did not suffi- 
ciently allow for delays ; yet had she 
been ever so experienced, she would 
not have supposed the delay would 
extend itself to this. It is not of 
much moment to inquire into the 
precise cause of this delay : it is suffi- 
cient to know that it did occur : and 
it gave as yet no signs that it would 
be speedily ended. 

Sara had expected the money early 
in April. . It did not come. ‘‘ It will 
be up next week,” she said to herself. 
But the next week came and did not 
bring it, and she wrote to Mr. Wheat- 
ley. He hoped to realize in a day or 
two, was his somewhat incautious 
answer ; but in truth he himself, not 
being a man of business, anticipated 
no vexatious delay. It was an un- 
fortunate answer for Sara, for from 
that date she began to look for the 
money daily : and you have not yet 
to learn what impatience this daily 
waiting and expecting works in the 
human heart. When one morning’s 
post passed over and did not bring it , 
or news of it, Sara counted on it for i 
the morrow. And the morrows came 3 
and went, on and on ; and Sara wrote |S 
aiidVrote, until she grew sick with i 
the procrastination and the disap, I 

V 


OSWALD CRAY. 


231 


pointment. She had waited for this 
money so anxiously, that it had be- 
come with her a feverish longing ; 
something like that strange disease, 
mal du pays, as it is called, which at- 
tacks the poor Swiss, exiled from 
their native land. Not* for the sake 
of the money itself, was she so 
troubled — you know that; but from 
the fear of what evil the delay might 
bring. In reply to the letter she had 
forwarded to Mr. Alfred King on the 
death of Dr. Davenal, that unknown 
gentleman, whoever he might be, had 
replied in a short note and a very 
illegible handwriting (abounding in 
flourishes), that he was sorry to hear 
of the doctor^s death, but counted on 
the fulfilment of the obligation with- 
out vexatious delay. This was ad- 
dressed to Miss Sara Davenal, and 
reached her safely at Hallingham. 

Poor Sara, in her inexperience, in 
her dread of what this man might 
have in his power, touching her 
brother, feared he might deem two or 
three weeks only a “ vexatious delay 
and when the two or three weeks 
went on, and two or three weeks to 
those, and two or three weeks again, 
then it was that the dread within her 
grew into a living agony. Who Mr. 
Alfred King might be, she knew not. 
On that night when she had been 
called down to Dr. Davenal’s study 
and found her brother there, she had 
gathered from some words dropped by 
the doctor, in his very imperfect ex- 
.planation to her, that some one else 
had been almost equally culpable with 
her brother : but who this other was, 
whether gentleman or swindler, 
whether male or female, she had no 
means of knowing. She did not sup- 
pose it to be Mr. Alfred King : she 
rather surmised that whoever it was 
must have gone away, as Edward 
had. Now and then she would won- 
der whether this Mr. Alfred King 
could be connected with the police : 
but that was hardly likely. Alto- 
gether, her ideas of Mr. Alfred King 
were extremely vague ; still she could 
not help dreading the man, and never 
thought of him without a shiver. 


She did not know what to do; 
whether to remain passive, or to write 
and explain that the money was com- 
ing, and apologize for the temporary 
delay. She felt an aversion to do 
this ; and she could not tell whether 
it might do harm or good. And so 
she did nothing: and the time had 
gone on, as you have heard, to 
June. 

Sara stood at the window gazing 
into space, when her attention was 
awakened to outward things by her 
seeing the postman turn into the 
street with a fleet step. Could it be 
the morning postman ? Yes, it must 
be, for the second delivery did not 
take place until eleven, and it was 
now half-past nine. Something had 
rendered him later than usual. 

She threw up the window listlessly. 
So many, many mornings had she 
watched for the post to bring this 
news from Hallingham, and been dis- 
appointed, that a reaction had come, 
and she now looked only for disap- 
pointment. You will understand this. 
The postman was dodging from one 
side of the road to the other with that 
unnecessary waste of time and walk- 
ing (as it seems to the uninitiated) 
which must help to make postmen^s 
legs so weary. He was at the op- 
posite house now, superseding the 
butcher-boy in the good graces of the 
maid-servant, with whom he stayed a 
rather unnecessary while to talk ; 
and now he came striding over. 
Sara leaned her head further out 
and saw him make for their gate. 

And her pulses suddenly quick- 
ened. Even from that height she 
could discern — or fancied she could 
discern — that the letter was from Mr. 
Wheatley. That gentleman always 
used large blue envelopes, and it was 
certainly one such that the man had 
singled out from his bundle of letters. 
Had it come at last ? Had the joy- 
ful news of the money come ? 

She closed the window, and ran 
swiftly down the stairs, and met Neal 
turning from the door with the letter. 
That gentleman was probably not at 
all obliged to her for demanding the 


232 


OSWALD CRAY. 


letter from him so summarily. But 
he had no resource but to give 
it up. 

It was from Mr. Wheatley, and 
Sara carried it to her room, a bright 
flush of hope on her cheeks, an eager 
trembling on her happy fingers. Mr. 
Wheatley did not like letter writing, 
and she knew quite well that he 
would not have written uselessly. 
Opening the envelope, she found it a 
blank; a blank entirely: nothing 
even written inside it : it had but 
enclosed a letter for herself, which 
had apparently been sent to Halling- 
ham. Oh the bitter, bitter disap- 
pointment ! there was not a line, 
there was not a word from Mr. 
Wheatley ! 

A conviction arose that she had 
seen the other handwriting before : it 
seemed to be made up of flourishes. 
Whose what it ? Suddenly the truth 
flashed over her — Mr. Alfred King’s I 
Her heart stood still in its fear, and 
seemed as if it would never go on 
again. The contents ran as follows ; 

“Essex Street, June 1st. 

“ Madam : 

“ I am sorry to have to give 
you notice that unless the money 
owing to me, and which I have been 
vainly expecting these several weeks, 
is immediately paid, I shall be under 
the necessity of taking public steps in 
the matter : and they might not prove 
agreeable to Captain Davenal. 

“I am. Madam, 

“ Your obedient servant, 
“Alfred King. 

“Miss Sara Davenal.” 

So the first faint cloud of the 
haunting shadow of the past weeks 
had come ! Sara sat with the letter 
in her hand. She asked herself what 
was to be done ? — and she wished 
now, in a fit of vain repentance, that 
she had written long ago to Mr. 
Alfred King, as it had been in her 
mind to do. 

She must write now. She must 
write a note of regret and apology, 
telling him the exact truth — that the 


sale of the different effects at Hailing- 
ham and the realization of the pro- 
ceeds had taken more time than was 
anticipated, but that she expected the 
money daily — and beg of him to wait. 
In her feverish impatience it seemed 
as if every moment that elapsed until 
this explanation should be delivered 
to Mr. Alfred King was fraught witli 
danger, and she hastened to the room 
below, the drawing-room. 

Her desk was there. It was gen- 
erally kept in her own chamber, but 
she had had it down the previous “ 
evening. Keal was quitting the room 
as she entered : he had been putting 
it in order for the day. Sara did not 
fear interruption from her aunt, for 
Miss Davenal remained in the parlor 
below for an hour or two after 
breakfast ; and she sat down to 
write. 

The letter — Mr. Alfred King’s let- 
ter — was spread open before her, and 
she sat pen in hand, deliberating how 
she should answer it, when her aunt’s 
voice startled her. It sounded on the 
stairs. Was she coming up ? Sara 
hastily placed the open letter in the 
desk, closed and locked it, and opened 
the drawing-room door. But in her 
flurry she* left the key in the desk. 

Miss Davenal was standing on 
the mat at the foot of the stairs. 

“ Can’t you hear me call ?” she 
asked. 

“ I did hear, aunt. What is it ?” 

“ Then you ought to have heard !” 
was the retort of Miss Davenal, at 
cross purposes as usual. “Yow are 
not turning deaf, I suppose ?” 

“ What is it, aunt ?” repeated Sara, 
going half-way down the stairs. 

Instead of answering. Miss Dave- 
nal turned and went into the break- 
fast-room again. Sara could only 
follow her. Her aunt’s manners had 
never relaxed to her from the stern- 
ness assumed at the time of Dr. Dav- 
enal’s death : cold and severe she had 
remained ever since ; but she looked 
unusually cold and severe now. 

“ Shut the door,” said Miss Dave- 
nal. 

Sara hesitated for a moment, more 


OSWALD CD AY. 


233 


in mind than action, and then she 
obeyed. She had left her desk, and 
wanted to get back to it. 

‘‘Hold this,” said Miss Davenal. 

She had taken her seat in her own 
chair and was cutting out some article 
of linen clothing that looked as long 
as the room. Her income was a very 
moderate one now, and she did a good 
deal of sewing instead of putting it 
out. Sara took the stuff in her hand, 
and held it while her aunt cut : an in- 
terminable proceeding to an impatient 
helpmate, for Miss Davenal cut only 
about an inch at a time, and then 
drew a short thread and cut again. 

Won’t it tear ?” asked Sara. 

** It will wear. Did you ever know 
me buy linen that wouldn’t wear ? I 
have too good an eye for linen to buy 
what won’t wear.” 

** I asked, aunt, if it would not 
tear.” 

Tear !” repeated Miss Davenal, 
offended at the word — at the ignorance 
it betrayed. “No, it will not tear; 
and I should think there’s hardly a 
parish schoolchild in the kingdom but 
would know that, without asking.” 

Sara, rebuked, held her part in 
silence. Presently Miss Davenal lifted 
her eyes and looked her full in the 
face. 

“Who was that letter from this 
morning ?” 

Had it been to save Sara’s life she 
could not have helped the change, that 
came over her countenance. Miss 
Davenal’s quick penetration took in 
every thing : the dismayed look, the 
hesitating answer. 

“It was a private letter to me, 
aunt.” 

“A what ?” snapped Miss Davenal. 

Sara let fall the work, and stood 
fearlessly before Miss Davenal. The 
most gentle spirit can be aroused at 
times. “ The letter was from a gentle- 
man, aunt. It was a private letter to 
myself. Surely I am not so much of 
a child that I may not be trusted to 
receive one !” 

Miss Davenal flung away Sara’s 
hand in her anger. The words had 
borne to her ear but one interpretation. 


“A pri-vate let-ter ! — A gentleman 1” 
she slowly uttered in her dismay. 
“ I might have believed this of Caro- 
line had she been single, but never of 
you. A sweetheart in secret ! And 
your father not yet four months in his 
grave I” 

The bare mention of the word, un- 
connected with Oswald Cray, the idea 
altogether as thus put, was repulsive 
to Sara Davenal. She stood quite 
still for a moment, while the faint flush 
that was called up died away on her 
cheeks, and then she bent close to her 
aunt’s ear, her low voice unmistakably 
clear and distinct. 

“Aunt Bettina, you know there was 
some unhappy business that papa was 
obliged to meet — and bear — just before 
he died. The letter I have received 
this morning bears reference to it. It 
is from a Mr. King, but I don’t know 
him. I should be thankful if you 
would not force me to these explana- 
tions : they are very painful.” 

Miss Bettina picked up the work, 
and drew at a thread until it broke. 
“ Who is Mr. King ?” she asked. 

“ I do not indeed know. He had 
to write to me just a word about the 
business, and I must answer him. 
In telling you this much. Aunt Bet- 
tina, I have told all I can tell. Pray, 
for papa’s sake, do not ask me fur- 
ther.” 

Miss Bettina was a little vexed 
with herself. She was one of those 
good people who believe they never 
can be in the wrong ; but now that 
the heat of her anger was over, she 
was feeling that the allusion to the 
“ sweetheart” had been somewhat un- 
ladylike. Sara’s passing it over in 
silence was a tacit reproof. 

“Is he a young man, this Mr. 
King ?” 

“ I never saw him in my life,” re- 
plied Sara. “ I do not know any 
thing of him whatever ; who he is, 
or what he is. Do you wish me to 
hold this for you again ?” 

“ Well, this is a pretty state of 
things for the enlightened nineteenth 
century !” grunted Miss Bettina. “We 
have read of conspiracies and Dye 


234 


OSWALD CRAY. 


House plots, and all the rest of it; 
this seems a plot, I think ! Have you 
nothing more to say V' 

^^No, aunt,” was the low, firm an- 
swer. 

Then you may go,” said Miss 
Bettina, twitching the work out of 
Sara’s hand. I can do this myself.” 

And Sara knew that no amount of ' 
entreaty would induce her aunt to 
admit of help in her cutting, after 
that. Glad to be released, but sick at 
heart, she went up-stairs, and met 
Neal coming out of the drawing- 
room. 

“I thought you had fini^ed the 
room, Neal,” she said, a sudden fear 
stealing over her as she remembered 
that her desk was left with the key in 
it. 

So I had, Miss. I came up now 
for this vase. My mistress said it 
was to be washed.” 

He went down-stairs carrying it : 
a valuable vase of Sevres porcelain, 
never intrusted to the hands of. any- 
bocfy but Neal. It had belonged to 
poor Richard — was presented to him 
just before he went out on his unfor- 
tunate voyage. Sara walked to her 
desk ; it stood on the centre table. 
What with vases and other ornaments 
and superfluous articles of furniture, 
the room was somewhat inconveni- 
ently full. It was a good-sized room, 
too ; nearly square, the windows fac- 
ing you as you entered it, and the 
fireplace on the right. Opposite the 
fireplace was a beautiful in-laid cabi- 
net with a plate-glass back ; it had 
never cost less than forty pounds ; 
but Miss Bettina had not spared 
money when she bought her furniture 
years ago. Look at the girandoles 
on the walls ! — at the costly carpet, 
soft as velvet I Opposite the window 
stood Sara’s piano, a fine instrument, 
the gift of her loving father on her 
eighteenth birthday. Altogether, the 
room was an elegant one, but Miss 
Bettina could not have reconciled her- 
self to any other. The parlor below 
was a nice room also, with its hand- 
some sideboard and its glittering mir- 


rors ; but it was smaller than the 
drawing-room. 

Sara stood for a moment before her 
desk : it looked exactly as she left 
it. She turned the key and raised 
the lid, and saw that had anybody 
else done the same Mr. Alfred King’s 
letter was lying face upwards and 
might have been read without the 
slightest trouble in an instant of time. 
Had Neal seen the letter ? Would he 
be likely to do such a thing as raise 
her desk surreptitiously ? Many a 
servant would be in a room with an 
unlocked desk times and again, and 
never attempt to peer inside it. Was 
it probable that Neal had any pro- 
pensity for prying into affairs that 
did not concern him ? It all lay in 
that. 

Vexed with herself for having al- 
lowed the chance to any one, Sara 
carried her desk to her chamber, and 
sat down and wrote her note there. 
But she could not get the fear quite 
so readily out of her head : it was 
most inexpedient that Neal, or any 
one else, should see that letter of Mr. 
Alfred King’s. Suddenly there oc- 
curred to her mind something her 
brother Edward had once told her — 
about a doubt of Dr. Davenal’s — as 
to whether Neal had not opened a 
note of Lady Oswald’s. It was on 
the occasion, she well remembered, 
of Edward’s coming down to Caro- 
line’s wedding. Sara had scarcely 
thought of it from that time to this, 
but she strove to recall the circum- 
stances now. Edward, she remem- 
bered, had not joined in the doubt; 
he said he was sure Neal was not 
guilty. Sara had asked her father 
subsequently, and his answer was a 
somewhat careless one. “ I don’t 
know, my dear ; perhaps I was mis- 
taken.” And from that hour the 
affair had faded from her remem- 
brance. 

But, the idea admitted now, Sara 
could not put it away from her. Was 
it one of those unaccountable impres- 
sions, deserving the name of instinct, 
that caused it to cling to her ? Noth- 


OSWALD CRAY. 


235 


ing surely had occurred to justify the 
doubt. She had but met Neal comiug 
out of the room with the vase ; and 
it lay in NeaPs duty to go in for the 
vase as his mistress had ordered him. 
But it would not leave her. Sud- 
denly she thought of the doctor’s 
desk. If that had been opened ! In 
an impulse of fear she put the key 
into the lock. 

It would not turn. Something was 
the matter with the lock. Had it 
been tampered with ? Sara’s face 
grew hot. 

Turning and twisting and pulling, 
but all gently, she worked the key 
about in the lock. No, it would not 
open it. In the previous summer’s 
holidays, a certain cupboard in Wat- 
ton’s room down-stairs declined to be 
opened in just the same way, and 
when inquiries came to be made, Mas- 
ter Dick Davenal boldly avowed that, 
wanting some jam one day, he had 
opened it with another cupboard key, 
and so had spoiled the lock. Had 
this lock been put out of order in the 
same way ? The proper key to it was 
always about herself. 

She could not speak to Neal, in • 
spite of this doubt of him which had 
so strangely come to her. To speak 
would be to accuse him. She went 
out to post the letter, and on her re- 
turn found a locksmith and brought 
him in with her. He speedily opened 
the desk and put the lock to rights. 

It was only a ward bent,” he said, 
inquired whether he thought it 
had been done through a strange key 
being put into the lock, but she did 
not get much satisfaction. ‘‘ Like 
enough it might,” he said ; but “ some- 
times them wards get out of order 
with their own key.” 

‘‘It seems quite a common lock,” 
remarked Sara, as she paid him. 

“ Laws, yes I A’most any key 
might open that.” 

Nothing could exceed Miss Dave- 
nal’s astonishment when, happening 
to open the parlor door, she found 
herself face to face with a strange man 
who was descending the stairs ; a 
black and grimy man, who appeared 


to own no hat, and wore a leather 
apron. Her first thought was, that 
he had come into the house for no 
good, and in the moment’s impulse 
she called loudly for Neal in an accent 
of alarm. Up sprung Neal from the 
kitchen ; up came Dorcas after him, 
both wondering what was the matter. 

“ What does this man do in the 
house ?” cried Miss Davenal. “ How 
did you come into it ?” she demanded 
of the culprit himself. 

“Aunt, aunt, it is all right,” said 
Sara, running down. “ I brought him 
in with me.” 

She moved close to her aunt to ex- 
plain ; and the man, touching his hair, 
went out. “ Something was the mat- 
ter with the lock of papa’s desk. Aunt 
Bettina. I brought the man in to see 
what it was, and to open it.” 

“ What was the matter with the 
desk ?” questioned Miss Bettina. 

“ I don’t know. It would not open : 
such a thing has never happened to it 
before. Do you remember last mid- 
summer holidays Dick spoiled Wat- 
•ton’s cupboard through undoing it 
with a false key ? The man says 
it may have been the same case 
here. ” 

And Neal, who was standing im- 
mediately opposite his young mis- 
tress, and met her eye as she spoke, 
heard the words with unruffled com- 
posure ; not so much as a shade of 
change disturbing the equanimity of 
his impassive countenance. 

A clatter outside the street door, 
and a footman’s knock, interrupted 
them. Neal turned to open it. A 
fine equipage had dashed up, with its 
blood horses and its grand coachman 
on a hammer cloth. Mrs. Cray had 
arrived to make an early morning 
call. 

4 

CHAPTER XXXIY. 

AN UNPLEASANT VISIT. 

“ Set me down at Essex Street.” 

The request, proffered in a sweet 


236 


OSWALD CRAY. 


and timid voice, was made by a young 
lady who had just taken her place in 
an omnibus. The conductor’s gracious 
response was to shut the door with a 
desperate bang and call out hi” to 
the driver — as a signal that he might 
go on. 

The young lady took the seat on 
the right, next the door, instinctively 
shrinking from the sea of eyes around. 
She was too pretty not to be stared 
at : but that she was essentially a lady 
and one not very familiar with omni- 
buses, her motions seemed to bespeak. 
Her soft eyelids fell on her flushed 
cheeks, and the crape veil, pertaining 
to her handsome mourning, was not 
raised from before her face ; but with 
all her modest timidity she did not 
lose that quiet self-possession which 
rarely forsakes the gentlewoman. 

You will be at no loss to guess that 
it was Sara Davenal. The expedition 
she was bound upon was one that 
nothing save, obligation could have 
forced upon her — a visit to Mr. Alfred 
King. Her note to that gentleman 
had brought forth another letter from 
him. It was to the effect that he 
could not wait longer for the money 
without the utmost inconvenience, but 
he would do himself the honor of call- 
ing upon her at eleven o’clock the fol- 
lowing morning, to discuss the matter 
in person. 

A most unsatisfactory, dismaying 
communication to Sara. To receive 
him in her Aunt Bettina’s house was 
out of all question : for that estimable 
lady would undoubtedly have insisted 
upon making a third at the interview. 
To have the secret brought home to 
her very hearth would be too fortunate 
an opportunity to miss acquainting 
herself with its nature and details, 
even though she bad to draw the in- 
formation from Mr. Alfred King. Sara 
saw what must be done, however she 
might dislike it ; and she wrote a 
hasty note to the gentleman, saying 
that it would not be convenient to 
receive him in her own house, but she 
would instead wait upon him in Essex 
Street. Hence her unwonted omnibus 
journey. 


The omnibus dashed along on its 
road. It was full, and therefore there 
was no loitering. Leaving Pimlico 
behind it, it passed Charing Cross and 
gained the Strand. There it stopped 
for somebody to get out, and Sara 
looked up at an exclamation made by 
the passenger seated immediately op- 
posite to her, a lady apparently but 
little older than herself : a quiet, 
steady, self-possessed girl, with a pleas- 
ing face and fair hair. 

The passing of a gentleman on the 
pavement close up to w^hich the omni- 
bus was drawn, had apparently caused^ 
the exclamation to escape her. His 
eyes in the same moment caught the 
fair face bent towards him from the 
door, and he approached. A bright 
smile greeted him, and he took her 
hand and kept it as they spoke to- 
gether. 

‘^You, Jane!” he exclaimed, and 
the voice, subdued though it was, bore 
a laughing sound. It is about the 
last place I should have expected to 
see you in. I thought you and omni- 
buses were decided foes.” 

“But I am going a long way this 
morning; too far to walk,” she an- 
swered. ^^We have had a letter 
from ” 

She bent her face lower, and the 
words became indistinct. The gen- 
tleman resumed. 

“ And you are going to inquire 
about it ? Well, Jane, don’t be in a 
hurry. I’ll tell you why another time. 
Inquire particulars if you like, but fix 
nothing. The fact is, I have some- 
thing else in view.” 

“ Of course we’d not fix any thing 
without consulting you,” she answer- 
ed, in her pleasant Scotch accent. 
“ When wdll you be coming ?” 

“ To-night, most likely. Good-by, 
Jane. Take care of 3^ourself.” 

He released her hand, the conductor 
gave the door a bang, and the omni- 
bus dashed on. Sara had turned 
white as death. A variety of emo- 
tions that she would not have cared to 
analyze were at conflict within her — 
for the voice was the voice of Oswald 
Cray. 


OSWALD CRAY. 


237 


And he had gone away, not seeing 
her.* For that she was on some ac- 
counts thankful. He might have been 
as much surprised to see her in an 
omnibus — perhaps more so — as he 
was the young lady opposite ; and 
least of all to Oswald Cray could Sara 
have explained the errand on which 
she was bent. She stole a glance at 
the girPs interesting face ; a good and 
sensible face ; one that might well win 
the regard even of Oswald Cray ; and 
that baneful plant jealousy, which per- 
haps had taken root in her heart before, 
suddenly shot forth its sharp tendrils 
into every corner. What right had 
she, Sara Davenal, to indulge any such 
passion ? — had she not parted from 
Oswald Cray forever ? 

Did you not ask to be put down 
at Essex Street 

The question aroused her from her 
pain. It came from the same young 
lady opposite, and Sara looked up 
with a start. 

Yes,” she answered. 

Then we must have passed it, for 
this that we are going through is 
Temple Bar; and I know Essex Street 
js before we come to that. This young 
lady told you to set her down at Essex 
Street,” she added to the conductor. 
And the man stopped the omnibus 
without offering the slightest apology. 

Thank you,” said Sara to her, cour- 
teously. And she walked away with 
the pleasant voice ringing in her ears, 
and the conviction that it must be Jane 
Allister seating itself in her heart. 

She walked slowly down Essex 
Street, looking out for the offices of 
Messrs. Jones and Green, and soon 
found them. It was a large and dusty- 
looking house, on the right hand side 
of the street, and was apparently let 
out to different occupants, as there 
were various names on the door. The 
top one was “ Mr. Carberry :” it was 
simply written in black letters on the 
door-post ; the second was on a great 
brass plate, nearly as large as the post 
itself, Jones and Green :” and there 
was another brass plate, which had on 
it Messrs. Knollys, Solicitors to the 
Great Chwddya Mining Company.” 


Sara stood still as the last words 
caught her eye, like one arrested by 
surprise. It was not the unpronounce- 
able name that drew her attention; 
but the fact that this Great Chwddyn 
scheme was the very one in which 
Mark Cray had embarked ; the El 
Dorado of his friend Barker ; the 
source of Mark’s present flourishing 
prosperity, and of his future greatness. 

She felt sure it was the same name, 
though nobody ever >vrote it twico 
alike, and whether this, or any other, 
might be the correct way of spelling 
it, the Messrs. Knollys themselves 
could not have told. Mark Cray and 
Barker, finding the word rather diffi- 
cult to the tongue, had got into the 
habit of calling it the Great Wheal 
Bang Company,” as being readier 
than the other : “ Wheal Bang” being 
some technical term connected with 
the mine ; though whether applicable 
to any particular stratum of its ore, or 
to its works, o»to the mine generally, or 
to any thing else, Sara had never yet 
clearly understood. The Great 
Wheal Bang Mining Company” was 
the familiar term in Mark’s mouth, and 
in that of others interested in the mine, 
so prone are we to catch up phrases ; 
and '' The Great Wheal Bang” was 
certainly better for English tongues 
than the Great Chwddyn, with its 
variety of spelling in uninitiated hands. 
For once that Sara had heard the 
difficult name, she had heard the easier 
one a hundred times ; nevertheless, 
now that her eyes fell upon it, she 
knew it to be that, and no other. 

The fact in itself was not of moment 
to her, but thought is quick ; and the 
thought that darted across Sara’s mind 
was, that if Messrs. Knollys were the 
solicitors to this rich and important 
company, there might possibly be a 
chance of Mark Cray’s, or of his friend 
Barker’s, calling in at these offices at 
any moment, in which case they might 
see her. And that would not be at 
all convenient. 

But there was no help for it. 
could but go in ; and the chance only 
added another drop to the cup of pain. 
Most painful wa^ it to Sara, from more 


238 


OSWALD CRAY. 


causes tliau one, to come thus publicly 
to these places of business — and to 
come, as may be almost said, in secret, 
not daring to speak of her real errand. 

With her crape veil drawn more 
closely over her face, if that were pos- 
sible, she stepped into the passage, in 
that hesitating manner which betrays 
distaste or timidity ; in some cases, as 
in hers, both. A door on the left bore 
on it the words Messrs. Knollys 
and Sara was looking around her 
when a young man Vith a paper in 
his hand came hastily out of it. 

‘^Did you want Knollys’ office ?” he 
asked, in a matter-of-fact tone, noting 
her look of indecision. 

I want Messrs. Jones and 
Green’s.” 

''Dp-stairs, first floor.” 

He leaped put at the door as he 
spoke, and started up the street as 
fast as he could go. Sara passed 
through the inner entrance, which 
stood open, and asceifded the stairs. 
In great white letters on the door 
facing her at the top, she read, "Office : 
Jones and Green.” She knocked at 
the door, and a middle-aged red-faced 
man, in a seedy suit of black, and 
white neckerchief, opened it. 

"I wish to see Mr. Alfred King,” 
she said. " Is he here ?” 

" Mr. Alfred King ?” repeated the 
man. "He is not here now, and I 
don’t know Stay, I’ll inquire.” 

Leaving her standing there, he re- 
treated, and she heard a remote col- 
loquy carried on in an undertone. 
Then he came back again. 

" Mr. King won’t be here until 
twelve o’clock.” 

" I had an appointment with him at 
eleven,” said Sara, wondering whether 
there could be any mistake. 

" Perhaps so,” said the man. " But 
he dropped us a line this morning to 
say he could not get here till twelve. 
I dare say if you come then you can 
see him.” 

He shut the door, and Sara went 
down-stairs again. What should she 
do with herself this long hour — for it 
was not quite eleven yet. Suddenly 
she bethought herself that she would 


go to see Watton. St. Paul’s Church- 
yard, as Watton had told them — for 
she had paid Miss Davenal and Sara 
two or three visits since their arrival 
in London — was in a line with Temple 
Bar. 

Sara walked quickly through ^e 
crowded streets. Once she stopped 
to look in at an attractive shop, but 
somebody came jostling against her, 
she thought purposely, and she did 
not stop again. She easily found the 
house of business where Watton now 
was, and its private door. Watton 
herself came to it, and lifted up her 
hands in surprise. 

"Well, I declare. Miss Sara I I 
thought it was the cook, who had to 
step out for something that was for- 
gotten ; and the other maid’s up in 
the bed-rooms. Do pray come in, 
Miss ! How kind it is of you to come 
here to see me I” 

Sara did not think she had much 
time to go in, but Watton was urgent. 
She led her into a plain, comfortable 
sitting-room, which was her own, she 
said. Sara inquired if .she liked the 
situation any better ; for at first Wat- 
ton had not liked it. 

"Well, yes, miss, I think I do. 
Dse and time soften most things. 
There’s a great deal of responsibility 
on me, and enough work also. What 
I can’t get reconciled to is the dust 
and the noise. As to the dust and 
dirt, I’d never have believed in it 
without seeing it. Being in mourning 
for my late master, I have not worn 
white caps yet, and don’t believe I 
ever can wear them : I’m sure I might 
put on three a week, and not be clean. 
Sometimes I wash my hands four 
times in a morning.” 

" Then think what it is for my Aunt 
Bettina, with her delicate hands and 
her delicate lace,” returned Sara. " I 
suppose the dirt is not quite so bad 
with us as it is here ; but it seems as 
if nothing could be worse, and my 
aunt makes it a perpetual grievance. 
Shall you remain here, Watton ?” 

" I have made up my mind to try it 
for a twelvemonth. Miss Sara,” was 
the answer. "It’s too godd a situ- 


OSWALD CRAY. 


239 


ation to be given up lightly ; and it 
shall have a fair trial. I miss my 
country life ; I miss the green fields 
and the gossiping neighbors at Hal- 
lingham : oftentimes I wake from a 
dream, thinking I’m there, and then I 
am fit to cry with the disappointment. 
I fear the pleasant old times have gone 
away from me forever.” 

They go away from us all, Wat- 
ton,” was the murmured answer. 

Never to return again.” 

You will send the two young 
gentlemen to see me, Miss Sara,” said 
Watton, as she was showing her out. 

Perhaps they’d honor me by drink- 
ing tea here once or twice in the course 
ot‘ their holidays. My evenings are 
my own. Master Dick should eat as 
much jam as he’d like. I’d get in half 
a dozen pots assorted.” 

Sara could not forbear a smile : 
Dick would have gone to the other 
end of the kingdom for half a dozen 
pots of assorted jam : but it changed 
to gravity as she turned to Watton. 

“ Watton, do you know I have been 
so great a coward as not to ask my 
aunt decisively whether she intends to 
have them up for the holidays. I very 
much fear she does not : I feel sure 
she does not : and therefore I shrink 
from asking, lest the fear should be 
made a certainty.” 

Poor boys 1” ejaculated Watton. 
“ Well, of course it’s all very different 
from what it was. A^,. Miss Sara ! 
there are too many will find cause to 
miss the good Dr. Da venal I” 

With the rebellious sorrow, called 
up by the words, rising in her heart, 
Sara walked along the hot and bust- 
ling streets again. It was a little past 
twelve when she reached Essex Street, 
and in going up the stairs she hap- 
pened to turn her head, and saw, step- 
ping quickly in at the outer door, Os- 
wald Cray. She hoped he had not 
seen her ; she thought he had not; 
and she hastened on, her pulses beat- 
ing. What strange coincidence could 
have brought him there ? 

Mr. Alfred King had arrived. Sara 
was shown through a busy room into 
a smaller one, long and narrow, ap- 


parently partitioned off from a third 
room, which she did not see. The 
room conta'ined a couple of chairs, a 
table-desk, and a slender, dandy sort 
of gentleman ; nothing more. He 
was leaning against the table, doing 
something to his nails with his pen- 
knife, an eye-glass in his eye, and a 
black moustache with rings at its ends 
curling on’ his lip. 

Mr. Alfred King ?” she said, in- 
terrogatively, for there had been no 
introduction. 

Mr. Alfred King bowed. He re- 
moved his hat which he had been 
wearing, shut up the pen-knife with a 
flourish of his thin white hands, courte- 
ously stepped forward, and was alto- 
gether the gentleman again. 

Miss Sara Davenal, I presume ?” 

How Sara entered on her task, she 
never knew. Its nature made her 
feel sadly confused and diffident, as if 
all self-possession had gone out of her. 
Whatever her brother’s crime might 
have been, she Assumed that the 
gentleman before her had cognizance 
of it ; and it rendered her miserably 
conscious in that first moment. Yery 
much embarrassed, and aware that 
she was so, she apologized for the de- 
lay in the payment of the money, stated 
that she expected it daily, and begged 
of Mr. King to be kind enough to 
wait a little longer. Just what she 
had stated in her letter : in fact she 
had nothing else to urge. 

“ I am exceedingly sorry to put you 
to the inconvenience of coming here. 
Miss Davenal,” he said, in a courteous 
but drawling tone. “It is reversing 
the general order of things. I should 
have been better pleased to wait upon 
you.” 

“ But I could not make it convenient 
to receive you,” replied Sara. “ The 
truth is,” she added, in her candor, 
“that my aunt. Miss Davenal, with 
whom I live, was not made cognizant 
of this business ; and it was my fa- 
ther’s, Dr. Davenal’s, wish that she 
should not be.” 

“ Ah, — I see,” observed Mr. Alfred 
King, in the same drawling tone that 
spoke so unpleasantly of affectation, 


240 


OSWALD CRAY. 


of something not true in his nature. 
‘‘ Still I feel horribly annoyed at caus- 
ing you the trouble of homing here, 
Miss Davenal.’^ 

Will you be so kind as to tell me 
the object of the interview she said. 

For what purpose did you wish to 
see me 

Ah, yes, to be sure. The fact is. 
Miss Davenal, some positive under- 
standing must be come to, as to the 
precise time when the money will be 
paid. You cannot imagine the incon- 
venience the delay has put me to, and 
but for the respect I once bore Captain 
Davenal, I would not have remained 
so passive as I have done.^’ 

There was a pointed stress on the 
word once’^ that recalled the blush 
into Sara’s cheeks, the dread to her 
heart. She murmured a hope that 
the money would be realized, and paid 
to him, ere the lapse of many days. 

You see. Miss Davenal, had the 
money no ulterior destination, it would 
not be of so much consequence,” he 
resumed. Were it due to myself 
only I would wait with the greatest 
pleasure, no matter at what incon- 
venience ; but that is not the case : 
it is these other parties who will not 
be pacified. Do you comprehend me. 
Miss Davenal ?” 

“ Yes, I think so,” said Sara, faintly, 
beginning to fear the affair was more 
complicated than she had thought. 

Who are the parties ?” 

Mr. Alfred King ran his white hand, 
and a showy ring that was on it, right 
through his black hair. Well — I 

would tell you if I could. Miss Dave- 
val : in any thing that concerns my- 
self only, you may command me as 
you please : but the fact is, I am not 
at liberty to mention the names of 
those parties even to you.” 

There was a pause, and Sara’s man- 
ner for the moment grew haughtily 
distant. She liked his words less and 
less. But she recollected herself : she 
subdued her proud spirit. Was not 
Edward in his power ? 

These parties have been angry at 
the delay,” he resumed, breaking the 
silence that had ensued. They have 


badgered the life nearly out of me over 
it : excuse the term. Miss Davenal, it 
but expresses the fact. I assure you 
I have had a most difficult task to 
keep them from proceeding to ex- 
tremities. And, in short, they won’t 
be put off longer.” 

From extremities ?” she repeated, 
the one ominous word alone catching 
her ear. 

Mr. Alfred King looked at her, not 
speaking. His gaze seemed to ask 
her how much she knew. She did 
not respond to it. 

We re this unfortunate matter made 
public, nothing could save Captain 
Davenal,” he resumed, in a low tone. 
“ He is now in India, in apparent 
safety, but — in short, it would only be 
a question of time, two or three months 
or so. Men are brought from the ends 
of the world now to answer for — for 
crime.” 

Subdued as was his voice, Sara 
looked around in terror. That parti- 
tion, if nothing more than a partition, 
was probably a shallow one, allowing 
sound to pass beyond it. 

“ Be at ease,” he said, detecting 
her fear. We are quite alone.” 

‘^Partitions are sometimes so thin !” 

“ Not that one. It has been made 
ear-tight — is there such a word ? It 
would never do for men to transact 
private business where they might be 
overheard. You may rely on my as- 
surance, Miss Davenal, that our voices 
cannot reach beyond this room. If I 
dropped mine it was from quite a 
different motive — delicacy of feeling 
towards Captain Davenal.” 

Sara believed the assurance so far, 
and grew easier. “Do you know 
Captain Davenal ?” she asked. 

“ Yery well indeed. He and I were 
at one time sworn friends, constantly 
together. Until this unhappy affair 
arose to part us.” 

Perhaps she would have liked to 
ask the particulars that she did not 
know. But her whole heart revolted 
from it : it would have seeded like 
acknowledging Edward’s crime. 

“ You see, his being in India is only 
a temporary safeguard, and these par- 


OSWALD CRAY. 


ties who hold his safety in their hands 
might bring him home if they chose. 
It is only in compliance with my 
urgent entreaties that they have kept 
passive so long. But the delay is ex- 
tending itself beyond all reason, and 
they — in short, Miss Davenal, they 
will not wait longer.” 

But what can I do ?” she urged 
in her helplessness. I admit that 
the delay is vexatious — heaven knows 
I have felt it so,” she added, with a 
burst of feeling that would not be 
suppressed — but the money is there ; 
it will very shortly be forthcoming, 
and then it will be paid.” 

^'Yes, I have pointed out all this 
to them,” he said, flicking a speck of 
dirt off his coat. I — I suppose there 
is no foreign delay or obstruction, be- 
yond the delay caused by realizing 
the different m.onies ?” 

His sudden penetrating glance at 
her, the hidden earnestness of his tone, 
told Sara that this was a question of 
importance to him. It was nearly the 
only point throughout the interview 
which had not borne to her ear and 
eye a vague and indefinite idea of 
something untruthful : untruthful in 
himself, his voice and his words. Pos- 
sibly he had sought the personal in- 
terview with the sole view of ascer- 
taining this solitary fact. An impres- 
sion that it was so, passed rapidly 
through her mind. 

''Let me thoroughly understand 
you,” she said, following her own 
thoughts rather than his words. " Tell 
me without reserve exactly what it is 
you wish to know, and I will answer 
you to the best of my power. There 
is no other cause for the delay, except 
that the monies have not been realized 
so quickly as they ought to have been ; 
no other cause whatever ! Were you 
thinking that there was ?” 

"I ?” and again the false, drawling 
tone grated harshly on her ear. "Not 
I, I assure you. Miss Davenal. Those 
parties, of whom I spoke, hinted to 
me that with all this delay it looked 
as if there were no intention to pay 
the moi|gy. Of course I knew that it 

'15 


241 

was nothing of the sort; that the 
money must be paid.” 

" The very day that the money 
reaches me it will be paid to you, ac- 
cording to the instructions of my 
father. Dr. Davenal,” she said impres- 
sively. " I beg you to believe this : 
and to convey the assurance of it to 
them.” 

" I will do so. How much longer 
do you suppose the delay will extend ? 
Can you fix any definite date for the 
payment ?” 

" I wish I could. But you see it 
does not rest with me. A very, very 
short period now will, I believe, see 
it settled.” 

Mr. Alfred King mused. " I will 
inform them of what you say. Miss 
Davenal, and I do trust the period 
may be a short one. If protracted, I 
cannot answer that they would remain 
passive.” 

" They must be cruel men, to wish 
to harm Captain Davenal I” 

" No,” he answered. " Had they 
been cruel men they would not have 
consented not to harm him. It is not 
that, Miss Davenal ; it is the money 
itself that is wanted ; and the delaj 
vexes them.” 

She was feeling desperate, and she 
ventured on a bold step. " In their 
own interest, then, they must be cau- 
tious not to harm him. Were they to 
do so, they would lose the money.” ^ 

" Why ?” 

" Because I would never pay it.” 

Mr. Alfred King glanced at her in 
surprise. All her timid hesitation of 
manner was gone, the expression of 
her face had turned to resolute 
bravery. "I do not pretend to en- 
tire acquaintance with the details o 
this unhappy business, but I under- 
stand so much, Mr. King — that this 
money purchases my brother's safety. 
If that be imperilled, the bargain 
would be forfeited, and the money 
retained. The payment or non-pay- 
ment of this money rests solely with 
me ; and I should not keep faith with 
the other parties if they did not keep 
theirs with my dead father.” 


242 


OSWALD CRAY. 


“ There will be no question of their 
not keeping faith, provided they get 
their rights, Miss Davenal. ” 

‘^And their rights — if you mean 
the money — they shall have ; I trust 
speedily. I shall be only too glad to 
get the matter over.” 

'' I’m sure I shall be,” returned Mr. 
King, in a tone that was certainly a 
hearty one. It will be well for all 
parties ; very well for Captain Dav- 
enal.” 

Sara turned to the door. Mr. Al- 
fred King took up his hat for the pur- 
pose of attending her outside. 

“ I am glad that you have allowed 
me this interview. Miss Davenal. It 
will be so much more satisfactory to 
these gentlemen now that I have seen 
you. Dr. DavenaPs death occurring 
as it did, was most unfortunate. By 
the way, did he not leave some papers 
behind him ?” 

There are papers in my posses- 
sion relating to this affair,” she an- 
swered. ‘'I know what to do with 
them when the proper time shall 
come.” 

Ah, yes, of course ; doubtless,” 
came the untrue words in their untrue 
tone. Then I may rely on the very 
speedy receipt of this money, Miss 
Davenal ?” 

You may rely upon having it im- 
mediately that it is paid to me. That 
is all, I presume, sir ?” 

Mr. Alfred King could not say that 
was not all. Ho gallantly offered his 
arm to pilot her through the busy 
office of Messrs. Jones and Green ; 
but Miss Sara Davenal, with a ges- 
ture far more expressive of haughty 
pride than of gratitude, declined the 
honor. The interview was leaving a 
disagreeable impression on her mind, 
apart from its natural unpleasantness : 
and perhaps it was unreasonable of 
her, but she had taken an unconquer- 
able dislike ^to Mr. Alfred King. 

The stairs seemed more busy than 
the lawyers’ room. Men, some of 
them rather rough-looking ones, were 
passing up and down. Mr. Alfred 
King drawled an anathema on the 
tenant of the second floor, Mr. Car- 


berry. Mr. Carberry had only re- 
cently taken the rooms, and he ap- 
peared to have no ostensible occupa- 
tion, save the receiving of a great 
many visitors and an occasional tele- 
gram. The visitors were supposed to 
be mostly in the sporting line ; and 
during the holding of distant races, 
the passages and door would be be- 
sieged by an eager and noisy crowd, 
as was the case on this day. 

‘‘ Three times have we had them 
scattered by the police,” exclaimed 
Mr. Alfred King, unmistakably in 
earnest now. “And that pest Car- 
berry — or whatever the fellow’s name 
may be — can’t be got rid of for nearly 
a twelvemonth to come I Knollys’s 
have threatened to indict the landlord 
for a nuisance ; Jones and Green have 
given him conditional warning to 
quit; and it’s all of no use. The 
landlord went to Carberry with tears 
in his eyes, and told him he’d be the 
ruin of his bouse, that he’d forgive 
every farthing of rent already owing 
if he’d go ; but Carberry coolly said 
he had taken it for a twelvemonth, 
and he should stop his twelvemonth. 
Miss Davenal, you cannot I Allow 
me !” 

For Sara had come face to face with 
this crowd at the street door, and 
commenced a struggle with them, they 
not being polite enough to give way 
in the least. Mr. Alfred King seized 
her arm forcibly, with a view of help- 
ing her, when she was as forcibly 
separated from him by an authoritative 
hand, and found herself on the arm of 
Mr. Oswald Cray, his face a-blaze 
with haughty anger, as he turned it 
on Mr. Alfred King. 

“ Thank you, sir,” he said, all the 
pride of the Oswalds concentrating 
itself in him then. “ This lady is 
under my charge.” 

And Mr. Alfred King, with a some- 
what subdued manner, as if he had 
received a check that he did not care 
to resist, made as polite a bow to Sara 
as the crowd allowed him, and dis- 
appeared from view. 

Clear of the assemblage, Sara would 
have withdrawn her arm, but Oswald 


OSWALD CRAY. 


243 


Cray held it too tightly. A moment, 
and he turned his face upon her, a- 
blaze still. 

What do you do with that man ? 
He is not a fit acquaintance for you.’^ 

At first she could not answer. Not 
so much from the suddenness of the 
whole thing and the emotion it had 
brought to her, as because she did not 
know what explanation to give. 

‘^In going into Knollys’s office just 
now, I thought I saw you making 
your way up the stairs,’^ he resumed. 

I said to myself, that it could not 
be : but I was unable to get the im- 
pression from my mind, and I waited. 
One of Knollys’s clerks said that the 
young lady, gone up, had inquired for 
Alfred King. What can have taken 
you to him 

He was growing somewhat less 
vehement. It had been a moment to 
convince him that the love, which he 
safely deemed he was subduing, re- 
mained with him still in all its force. 
To rescue her from that undesirable 
companionship, from contact with the 
unhallowed crowd of gambling men, 
he would have parted with his life. 

I was compelled to go,” she mur- 
mured ; I could not help myself.” 

Compelled to go up those stairs ? 
Compelled to pay that man a visit ?” 

Yes, I was. It was as distaste- 
ful to me as it could be, but I had no 
resource.^ I went there on business, 
which no one but myself could trans- 
act. Thank you for your protection, 
Mr. Oswald Cray.” 

She withdrew her arm now, and 
there was no opposition to it. Reason 
was resuming her seat in Oswald’s 
mind, and he felt angry with himself 
for his excess of demonstration. All 
things considered, it had been scarcely 
wise. 

It is not at all a place for a young 
lady to go to,” he resumed, as he 
walked by her side, and his manner 
became cold even to restraint. “ The 
Knollys are sufficiently respectable, 
but as much cannot be said for the 
tenants of the upper part of the house. 
You must not go to it again. Miss 
Davenal.” 


Once again she knew she should 
have to go to it, but she fervently 
hoped that would close the matter. 
She could not tell Oswald Cray the 
nature of the business that took her 
there ; but perhaps in speaking the 
next words, a faint hope that he might 
form some guess at it (knowing, as 
she believed he did know, the particu- 
lars of the unhappy secret) was in 
her mind and prompted them. Parted 
though they were, she did care to stand 
well in the estimation of Oswald Cray ; 
she esteemed him still beyond any one 
on earth. 

I never saw Mr. Alfred King until 
this morning: he is no acquaintance 
of mine, or ever likely to be. But he 
tells me he was once an intimate friend 
of my brother Edward’s.” 

Oswald Cray’s haughty lip took an 
additional curl. He njay have been 
looked upon as a respectable man 
once ; but he lost himself. He is no 
fit acquaintance for you.” 

'' I could not help myself,” she an- 
swered, her cheek glowing. It was 
necessary that I should see him, and 
the interview could not be delegated 
to another.” 

He made no reply. He kept by 
her side until they reached the top of 
Essex Street ; there he stopped. 

How are you going home, Mis& 
Davenal ?” 

In an omnibus.” 

One for Pimlico was passing at the 
moment, and Oswald held up his hand. 
It happened to be nearly empty. He 
put her in, and followed himself. 

But he never spoke to her. If he 
was sitting there for her protection, 
as she supposed, in his courteous chiv- 
alry, it was only the bare protection 
that he gave ; little friendliness. She 
could not help contrasting his present 
manner to her, with the ready cordi- 
ality he had shown to that other oc- 
cupant of the omnibus, earlier in the 
morning. She did not say that she 
had seen him. 

She supposed he would get out at 
Parliament Street, but the omnibus 
went by it, and he made no sign. 
One or two stragglers got in and left 


244 


OSWALD CRAY. 


again, but they were nearly alone. 

He intends to see me safely home,^^ 
she thought! 

Even so. When the omnibus 
stopped for Sara, he handed her out 
and walked by her side as he had done 
in Essex Street. Close at the house, 
he held out his hand. 

Thank you for your kindness,” 
said Sara. “But I am very sorry you 
should have troubled yourself to come 
with me. It must have broken your 
day greatly.” 

“Never mind; I shall catch it up,” 
he answered, looking at his watch. 
“ I do not like to see you in these 
London streets alone. I cannot for- 
get that Dr. Davenal was once my 
dear friend, and that you are his 
daughter.” 

And dropping her hand, which he 
had taken in farewell, he turned away 
at a rapid pace. 



CHAPTER XXXY. 

A FLOURISHING COMPANY. 

The Great Wheal Bang Mining 
Company had its offices in a commo- 
dious and irreproachable quarter of 
the City. If I give the familiar name. 
Wheal Bang, instead of the difficult 
o-ne, Chwddyn, which can only be 
spelt from copy, letter by letter, and 
perhaps wrongly then, it is to save 
myself and my readers trouble. Not 
being Welsh, they might find a diffi- 
culty in arriving at the accurate pro- 
nunciation, just as I do at the spelling. 
The promoter of the Great Wheal 
Bang Mining Company, Mr. Barker, 
occupied sumptuous apartments in 
Piccadilly ; and his co-partner in the 
scheme, as Mark Cray was to all 
intents and purposes now, flourished 
in his mansion in Grosvenor Place. 

The offices were undeniable in their 
appointments. Situation, width of 
staircase, size of rooms, decorations, 
furniture, attendants ; all were of the 
first water. People who play with 


the money of others do not in general 
go to work sparingly; and specula- 
tive schemes, if the gloss on the sur- 
face, essential to the attracting of the 
public, or supposed to be essential to 
it, is laid on with a lavish hand, 
necessarily entail a large outlay. 
These schemes, springing up now 
and again in London, to the beguile- 
ment of the unwary — one in about 
every ten of which may succeed in 
the end — have been so well described 
by abler pens than mine that I might 
hesitate even to touch upon them, 
were it not that my story cannot con- 
veniently get on without my doing 
so, and that I have a true tale to tell. 
How many hearts have been made to 
ache from the misery entailed by 
these uncertain ventures, ushered in 
with so much pomp and flourish, so 
full a promise of prosperity; and how 
many heads, unable to bear the weight 
of the final ruin, have been laid low in 
the grave, God alone will ever know. 
They have ruined thousands in body ; 
they have ruined some in soul : and 
the public is not yet tired of them, 
and perhaps will not be to the end of 
time. 

If you never had the chance of go- 
ing to bed at night a poor man, and 
waking up in the morning with a 
larger fortune than could be counted, 
you might have it now. You had 
only to enter largely into* thi Great 
Wheal Bang Company, become the 
successful possessor of a number of 
its shares, and the thing was accom- 
plished. For the world was running 
after it, and some of the applicants 
were successful in their request for 
allotments ; and some were unsuc- 
cessful, and these last went away 
with a face as long as the Wheal 
Bang’s own prospectus, growling out 
a prophecy of all manner of ill-fortune 
for it. Their grapes were sour. The 
shares were up in the market to a 
fabulous premium, and a man might 
take half a dozen into Capel Court 
and come out of it with his pockets 
stuffed full of gold. 

Mark Cray’s money had effected 
wonders : or rather his wife’s, for 


OSWALD CRAY. 


245 




hers it was. A great many of these 
magnificent projects are nipped igno- 
bly in the bud through want of a little 
ready money to set them fairly going. 
But for Mrs. Cray's thousands, Mr. 
Barker’s mine of gold might never 
have been heard of by the world, and 
Mr. Barker’s name had not attained 
to its enviable pre-eminence. These 
thousands did it all. They got up 
the company, they set the mine 
a-working, they paid for the costly 
offices, they dazzled the eyes of the 
public ; they gave earnest of present 
wealth ; they seemed to assure future 
success. Certainly, if any mine had 
ever a fair prospect of realizing a 
golden fruition, il appeared to be the 
Great Wheal Bang. The working of 
it had begun most promisingly, and 
every success was fairly looked for. 
In calling it a gold mine just now, 
you of course understood that I was 
speaking metaphorically : for gold 
mines are not yet common among us, 
even in Wales. This, very valuable 
mine (as it could but turn *out'^o be) 
was not rich in gold, but in lead : 
and, as we all know, the one is 
speedily converted into the other. 
The previous autumn, in consequence 
of some trifling difficulty in London, 
Mr. Barker found it convenient to 
enter on a temporary sojourn at a 
distance ; and he penetrated to a re- 
mote district of South Wales. While 
there, with the good luck which that 
gentleman believed he was born to, 
and should some time realize, a vein 
of lead was discovered of a most 
promising nature. ^ He contrived to 
secure a large interest in it, and un- 
dertook to get up a company for the 
working of it. 

How he would have accomplished 
this, or whether he ever would have 
accomplished it, is doubtful, had he 
not found a coadjutor in Mark Cray, 
and an aid in Mark’s money. Mark 
resigned the control of the money to 
him, and Mr. Barker did not spare it. 
No earthly adjunct was wanting to 
insure the success of the scheme, 
provided the mine only realized its 
present promises. 


Has anybody, who may happen to 
read this, ever assisted iif getting a 
newly-discovered mine into working 
order ? If so, he may remember the 
money it cost. How it ran out of the 
hands like water that is poured 
through a broad-necked funnel, disap- 
pearing nobody knew where, and 
leaving little trace behind ! How the 
pounds went, and the hundreds went, 
and the thousands went — if the com- 
pany was fortunate enough to possess 
thousands to go — he may not recollect 
without wincing to this hour. Mark 
Cray’s thousands went. But ere they 
had come quite to an end, the Great 
Wheal Bang Company was in full 
operation in London, the shareholders 
had answered to their calls, and the 
money was flowing in. 

No lack of money was to be feared 
then. And the operations at the mine 
were conducted on a much grander 
scale, and the returns were certain to 
be without parallel, and Mr. Barker 
was in a glow of triumph, and Mark 
Cray in a state of ecstatic delight, 
and the lucky shareholders leaped up 
sixteen scales in the ladder of society. 
How many set up carriages on the 
strength of their future riches, it is 
beyond my power to tell. The money 
flow^ed down to the mine, and the 
w^orks went on beautifully, and the 
specimens of ore that came up to 
town were said to be more valuable 
than any ore ever was before. As to 
Mr. Barker and Mark, their expenses 
were not deemed worthy of a thought : 
with all that money going (^t \veekly 
for the mine, personal expenditure 
w^as but as a drop of w^ate"? in the 
ocean ; and of course it was unneces- 
sary to think of limiting it. Mrs. 
Cray, with her vanity and her love 
of display, was in the seventh heaven, 
w^hile Mark looked back to his prosy 
life at Hallingham, and wmndered 
how he had endured it. He w'ondered 
how any of the doctors, left there, 
endured it, and pitied them from his 
heart. The thousand or fifteen hun- 
dred a-year he once thought to enter 
upon as successor to Dr. Da venal, 
wms recollected with contempt now, ' 


246 


OSWALD CRAY. 


This much must be said for the 
Great Whfal Bang Company — that its 
projectors were at least honest in their 
belief of its genuineness. In that, 
they differed from some other com- 
panies we have heard of, which have 
turned out to be nothing but a 
swindle — if you will excuse the word 
— from the earliest commencement, 
the very first dawning dream of their 
projectors. Mr. Barker was of that 
strangely sanguine nature, which sees 
a fortune in the wildest scheme, and 
plunges head and heart and creed into 
the most improbable speculation ; and 
as for Mark, an utter tyro in mines, 
and all that concerns them, including 
companies, he saw only with Barker’s 
eyes. When Mr. Barker assured the 
entranced shareholders that one hun- 
dred pounds put into the Great Wheal 
Bang would multiply ten-fold and ten- 
fold, he spoke only the sanguine belief 
of his heart. When Mark Cray de- 
clared to his brother Oswald that a 
thousand pounds embarked in it by 
him would make him a rich man for 
life, he asserted the honest truth 
according to his conviction. No 
wonder the two gentlemen promoters 
were eloquent. 

Mark had made several visits to the 
scene of the mines, and he came back 
each time with (if possible) renewed 
assurance of the brilliant future, and 
with increased ardor. Had the Chan- 
cellor of the Exchequer obligingly 
made Mark an impromptu present of 
a hundred thousand pounds, Mark 
would have flung it broadcast into the 
mine, dfd the mine thirst for it. He 
did noT understand these things in the 
least ; and the perpetual bustle going 
on, the number of the miners, even 
the very money paid in wages and 
such like expenses, were to Mark only 
an earnest of the rich returns that 
were to come hereafter. Mark would 
go back to London in a glowing state, 
and send his friends, the shareholders, 
into a fever, longing to realize the 
prosperity that seemed so close at 
hand. The weekly reports overshad- 
owed other weekly reports with envy, 
and created a furore in the speculat- 


ing world. Some of the shareholders 
who understood mines, or thought 
they did, better than Mark, went down 
to the Principality, and examined into 
the state of things for themselves ; 
they found them quite satisfactory, 
and came away as charmed as Mark. 
In point of fact, prospects did look 
well ; the lead was of an unusually 
good quality, and there seemed no 
reason whatever to anticipate any 
thing but success. Caroline had ac- 
companied her husband once to the 
mines ; but the stay there (putting 
prospects aside) did not please her : 
it was rough,” she told Mark, and it 
was very dull at the little inn ; and 
she was glad to come away from it all 
ere the second day was over. 

Perhaps the only person within the 
circle of Mark Cray’s acquaintance 
not bitten by the Wheal Bang fever, 
was Miss Davenal. Even Oswald 
Cray was to succumb at last. He 
would not become a shareholder ; he 
was too cautious a man to enter upon 
possible future liabilities, the extent 
of which no human being could fore- 
tell ; but he did feel inclined to put a 
thousand pounds into Mark’s hands, 
and tell him to do the best with it. 
It may almost be said that Oswald 
was worried into doing this. Mark 
would not let him rest. At the onset 
of the affair, when the gl^orious pros- 
pects of the Wheal Bang were first 
astonishing the world, Mark had 
urged Oswald to become one of them ; 
a director, or at least a shareholder ; 
but Oswald had turned a deaf ear. 
He felt greatly vexed at Mark’s im- 
prudence at abandoning Hallingham 
and his profession, leaving a certainty 
for an uncertainty ; he felt more than 
vexed at the manner in which Mrs. 
Cray’s money was disposed of, so 
entirely opposed to the dying injunc- 
tion of Dr. Davenal, so opposed (Os- 
wald deemed) to all wisdom and 
prudence ; and he set his face reso- 
lutely against the Wheal Bang. But 
Oswald was but mortal. As the 
weeks and months went on and the 
mines became to all appearance valua- 
ble, the company flourishing, and 


OSWALD CRAY. 


247 


Mark, in conjunction with others, 
dinned forever into his ear the for- 
tune he might make at it, Oswald be- 
gan to waver. He had a thousand 
pounds laid by, and he felt half 
inclined to risk it ; Mark over-per- 
suaded him ; and his visit to the 
Messrs. Knollys’s office the day he 
encountered Sara Davenal, was for 
the purpose of making certain in- 
quiries of those gentlemen relating to 
the Wheal Bang. 

Not so with Miss Bettina Davenal. 
She set her face resolutely against 
the Great Wheal Bang from the first, 
and nothing turned her. She had 
never forgiven Mark and his wife for 
quitting Hallingham, and her re- 
proaches to them could not cease. 
The apparent prosperity of the Great 
Wheal Bang changed not her opinion 
in the least. Mark asked her once 
whether she would take shares in it, 
and produced a Wheal Bang pros- 
pectus to point to its merits. She 
angrily replied that she would as 
soon throw her money into the 
Thames, that it would not be a surer 
way of getting rid of it, and rang the 
bell for Mark and his prospectus to 
be shown out of her house. 

Mark Cray sat in the board room 
at the city offices of the Great Wheal 
Bang. A noble room, the cloth on 
its long table of the freshest green 
and the finest texture. Mark leaned 
his elbow upon this cloth as he talked 
and laughed with some of the friends 
of the Great Wheal Bang, who were 
getting rich so easily. It was not a 
board day ; but visitors were numer- 
ous at all times. 

I had a line from him this morn- 
ing,^^ said Mark, continuing the con- 
versation. Spirits ? I should think 
he does write in spirits ! — what are 
you talking- of? They are getting 
up quantities of ore now. It will 
soon be ready for the market.” 

‘'And its quality does not deterior- 
ate ?” asked Markus immediate listener, 
a middle-aged gentleman with wise 
looking spectacles on his nose. 

“ Deteriorate I” repeated Mark. 
‘‘But you shall see the letter.” He 


began to turn over the papers on the 
table, and the diamond ring on his 
little finger, a hundred guinea invest- 
ment of his, began to show out the colors 
of a prism in its glittering brilliancy. 

“It is of no consequence,” returned 
the gentleman, when Mark could not 
readily find it. “I can take your 
word. When does Barker come up 
again ?” 

“ To-day or to-morrow ; I am not 
sure which. I should like you to 
have seen his letter, though it is |J;)ut 
a line or two. The only motive*Yor 
our fresh call upon the shareholders 
is to hasten the operations and conse- 
quently the returns. With more 
capital afloat, we can increase the 
workers at the mine, and bring the 
ore out more quickly.” 

“ It was to have been in the 
market by this.” 

“ One cannot calculate to a "day. 
It won^t be long now ; and its rich- 
ness, when it does come, will astonish 
the world. Do just as you like : take 
the shares or leave them. This 
gentleman would not have had them 
to dispose of but that he has urgent 
need of the money. He is over in 
Austria now, and has written to me : 
he is an old friend of mine.” 

“ I^d not hesitate a moment to take 
them, were it my own money ; I wish 
I had more to embark in it. 13 ut this 
is money belonging to my wards ; 
and their relatives are so anxious 
that I should choose a safe invest- 
ment, one in which there can be no 
risk.” 

Mark Cray rose from his seat. 
The word “ risk” offended his pride, 
and he could only wonder that any 
one could be idiot enough to use it in 
connection with the Great Wheal 
Bang Mine. But Mark had no need 
to solicit now the taking of shares : 
half London was ready to snap them 
up. : and he was too great a man to 
permit his time to be wasted unneces- 
sarily. 

“ Consider over it, if you please, 
until to-morrow morning, Mr. Gil- 
ham,” he said, as he moved away. 
“You can see the secretary if you 


248 


OSWALD CRAY. 


come in before ten. After that, the 
shares will not be disposable.” 

There’s no safer way to make a 
buyer eager, than for a seller to be 
indifferent; and Mr. Gilham and his 
spectacles went hastening after Mark, 
ready to close the bargain. But 
Mark was already the centre of an 
eager group, not to be got at again 
lightly. The next time Mr. Gilham 
caught sight of him, he was descend- 
ing the wide staircase, surrounded as 
b|ibre by a crowd of attendant wor- 
shippers, who were unwilling to part 
with the great man,' and his widely 
extending influence. 

But great men must dine as well as 
small, and Mr. Cray was hastening 
home to that necessary meal. He 
extricated himself from his friends, 
and stepped into his cab that waited 
at Ahe door ; a favorite vehicle of 
Mail’s, built under bis own superin- 
tendence, in which he generally went 
to and fro morning and evening, driv- 
ing his blood horse himself. Glancing 
at his watch as he dashed along 
Cheapside, he found it was consider- 
ably later than he had thought, and 
urged the horse to a quicker pace. 

For Mr. and Mi's. Cray were ex- 
pecting friends to dinner that even- 
ing. Dr. Ford of Hallingham and 
his two daughters were making a 
short stay in town, and had been in- 
vited by Mark and bis wife — neither 
of them loth to show off their new 
grandeur and to send it to be talked 
about in Hallingham. 

Suddenly Mark threw the horse 
nearly on his haunches by the vio- 
lence with which he pulled him up. 

^Oswald Cray was on the pavement. 
He advanced to Mark at the latter’s 
sign. 

‘‘Have you decided about the thou- 
sand pounds, Oswald ?” 

“ Partially. I went down to Knol- 
lys’s this morning, and they recom- 
mend the thing strongly. But I 
have worked hard for my money, 
Mark, and don’t care to lose it.” 

“ Lose it I” scornfully returned 
Mark. “ The Great Wheal Bang 
won’t be a losing concern. Look 


here, Oswald ! I have but one mo- 
tive in pressing tins matter upon 
you ; this mine of wealth has come 
flowing into my hands, and I do con- 
sider it a great pity that you, ray 
only brother, should not reap some 
benefit from it. Others, strangers, 
are making their thousands and thou- 
sands — or will make them ; and it’s 
nothing but wilful blindness for you 
to let it slip through your fingers. 
It’s obstinate folly, Oswald. Give 
me the thousand pounds, and I’ll 
soon make you ten thousand.” 

“ The fact is, Mark, I cannot feel 
so positively sure of its turning out 
well, as you do.” 

“ Oswald, I tell you that it will. 
I and Barker have means of knowing 
facts, connected with the mine, that I 
don’t speak of, even to you. As I 
assured you the other day, so I repeat 
it ; your money cannot be lost. It is 
a perfectly sure and safe investment ; 
I will answer for it with my life. 
Will you come home and dine with 
us ?” 

“ I have dined.” 

“ Dined !” echoed Mark, rather 
scornfully, for he was learning to 
despise any but the most fashionable 
hours — as many another newly-made 
great man has learnt before him. 
“ Come round in the evening, then, 
and see old Ford of Hallingham. 
Barker will be there, I expect, and we 
can talk this over further.” 

Mark Cray touched his horse, and 
the cab and its freight bounded off. 
Mark did not draw rein again until 
Grosvenor Place was reached. 


CHAPTER XXXTI. 

A SLIGHT CHECK. 

The house was blazing with light, 
every window bright with it. Mrs. 
Cray loved pomp and vanity in all 
their forms, and she generally caused 
her rooms to be lighted with the first 
glimmer of twilight. Mark Cray 


OSWALD CRAY. 


249 


stepped into his handsome hall and 
was received by a couple of footmen. 
Flinging his hat to one, his gloves to 
another, he bounded up-stairs to his 
dressing-room, conscious that he was 
keeping the dinner and his guests 
waiting. 

Did Mark Cray ever cast a sigh of 
regret to the quiet life at Hallingham, 
when he and his wife used to sit down 
to mutton cutlets and a pudding, and 
think the fare good enough ? Did 
she regret it at any odd moment ? 
Not yet. Dress and dinners and ex- 
pense of all sorts bring a fascination 
with them all too enthralling to the 
senses. How they pall upon the 
wearied spirit in time, how they 
deaden the heart and debase the intel- 
lect, let those answer who have be- 
come their slaves ; but Mark Cray 
and his wife had not reached that 
period of weariness yet. You may 
be very sure, knowing what you do 
know of the world and the generality 
of people who populate it, that Mr. 
and Mrs. Cray wanted not for what is 
called society. The great projector 
of the Great Wheal Bang Company, 
holding in his own hands the power 
to make others rich, was not likely to 
lack adulation in his private capacity 
any more than in his public one, and 
he and his wife drank their fill of it. 
Markus mind was shallow, and his 
head tolerably empty, but he was 
sufficiently attractive in manners to 
win his way in society, even without 
the adjunct just mentioned. Mark 
was looked upon as a gentleman also ; 
for it had somehow got reported that 
he was a nephew of the proud Baronet 
of Thorndyke. Perhaps it may be 
forgiven to poor empty-headed Mark 
that he held his tongue from contra- 
dicting it, and suffered the world to 
think he was of the family of that 
great man. As to Caroline, people 
were in love with her beauty and her 
youth ; and the costly extravagances 
of the house in Grosvenor Place bore 
their own charm. Altogether, more' 
guests crowded the doors of Mr. and 
Mrs. Cray than the doors could always 
hold. Many satellites of the great 


world, of a position far above the real 
one of Mark Cray and his wife, 
flocked to pay them court ; and neither 
of them was wise enough to see how 
unsuitable are extremes, or to discern 
that the acquaintance would never 
have been condescended to, but that 
Mark was the Great Wheal Bang’s 
powerful chieftain. Therefore it was 
nothing unusual for Mark Cray to 
receive dinner guests at his board ; on 
the contrary, it would have been a 
marked circumstance now had he^and 
his wife dined alone. 

Mark washed his hands and hurried 
on his coat, and in a few minutes was 
at his dinner-table, his guests on 
either side of him. One guest at it, 
Mark could only regard with astonish- 
ment, and that was Miss Davenal. 
Not that. Miss Davenal was not fitted 
to grace a dinner-table ; no lady more 
so at her age in the three kingdoms ; 
but she had so resolutely abstained 
from honoring Mark’s house with her 
presence, that he had never expected 
to see her in it again. Caroline said 
she should invite her and Sara to 
meet their old friends the Fords, and 
Mark had laughed when he heard it. 
“She’ll never come,” he said ; “you 
might as well invite the lioness from 
the Zoological Gardens.” However, 
here she was : she had chosen to come. 
She sat on Mark’s left hand, her deli- 
cate features quite beautiful in their 
refinement; Miss Ford was on his 
right, a shrinking little woman of 
forty years ; Miss Mary Ford and . 
Sara Davenal were lower down, and 
the physician, a little, red-faced, thin 
man, who talked incessantly and wore 
nankin pantaloons, was next to Caro- 
line. “ Put a knife and fork for Mr. 
Barker,” Mark had said to his ser- 
vants : but Mr. Barker had not made 
his appearance yet. Those were all 
the guests. 

There is something false about 
Caroline to-day. Look at her dress ! 
It is white watered silk, gleaming 
with richness, as the dew drops are 
gleaming in the white crape flowers 
in her hair ; and it, the white silk, is 
elaborately trimmed with black rucb- 


250 


OSWALD CRAY. 


ings and ribbons. That black, put on 
by her maid, taking the girl a whole 
afternoon to do it, has been added 
with a motive. Caroline in her even- 
ing dress has long put off the mourn- 
ing for her good uncle, her more than 
father, dead though he has been but 
four months yet ; but she is to-day a 
little ashamed of her haste, and she 
has assumed these black ribbons 
before these Hallingham friends and 
her Aunt Bettina, to make believe 
that she still wears it. Her violet 
eyes are intensely bright, and her 
cheeks glow with their sweetest and 
softest carmine. Sara wears a black 
crape robe, a little edging of white 
net only on its low body and sleeves, 
and she wears no ornament, except 
the jet beads on her neck and arms. 
The two Miss Fords are in copper- 
colored silks made high : when they 
saw Mrs. Cray’s white silk, fit for the 
court of our gracrous Queen, they felt 
uncomfortable, and attempted a sort 
of apology that they had brought no 
dinner-dresses with them. 

And the dinner is in accordance 
with Caroline’s at^tiire. Soup, and 
fish, and entrees ^ and roasts, and 
jellies, and sweets, and fal-lals ; and 
more sorts of wine than the Miss 
Fords, simple and plain, could re- 
member afterwards to count; and 
flowers, and plate, and servants in 
abundance : and grandeur enough 
altogether for the dining-room of 
England’s Premier. 

It was this state, this show, this 
expense that so offended the good 
sense (very good always, though over 
severe) of Miss Bettina Davenal, and 
kept her aloof from Mr. and Mrs. 
Cray’s house. If Mark really was 
making the vast amount of money 
(but it would have taken a wiser 
tongue than Mark’s to convince her 
that that usually assumed fact was 
not a fallacy), then they ought to be 
putting it by, she argued : if they 
were not making it, if all this was 
but specious wealth, soon to pass 
away and leave only ashes and ruin 
behind it, then Mark and Caroline 


were fit only for a lunatic asylum. In 
any point of view, the luxurious ap- 
pointments of the dinner she saw 
before her were entirely out of place 
for middle-class life : and Miss Bettina 
felt an irrepressible prevision that 
their folly would come home to them. 

But she knew better than to mar 
the meeting with any unpleasant re- 
proaches or forebodings then, and she 
was as cordial and chatty as her 
deafness allowed. It was a real 
pleasure to meet Hallingham friends, 
and Miss Bettina enjoyed herself 
more than she had ever done since 
the doctor’s death. 

The entertainment came to an end, 
and Caroline marshalled her guests to 
the glittering drawing-room : glitter- 
ing with its mirrors, its chandeliers,- 
and the many lights from its gilded 
girandoles. Dr. Ford and Mark fol- 
lowed shortly, and found them drink- 
ing coffee. Caroline and Sara were 
stealing a minute’s private chat to- 
gether : they had lived apart of 
late. 

How did you get my aunt to 
come ?” Caroline was asking. “ We 
thought she never intended to honor 
us again.” 

“ She came of her own accord. I 
did not say a word to press it. I 
have been so vexed this afternoon, 
Caroline,” resumed Sara, turning to a 
different subject. My aunt has told 
me finally that she will not have 
Dick and Leo up for their holidays.” 

Caroline shrugged her pretty 
shoulders. Very much as if Dick 
and Leo and their holidays were per- 
fectly indifferent to her. I don’t 
think I should, in Aunt Bettina’s 
place. Boys are dreadful trouble- 
some animals ; and now that — that 
poor Uncle Richard is not here to 
keep them in order — ” another shrug 
finished the sentence. 

Oh, but that is one reason why I 
so wish them to come,” said Sara, her 
voice somewhat tremulous. I don’t 
expect that they can be had always ; 
that would be unreasonable : but to 
stay at school just this first time 


OSWALD CRAY. 


251 


after poor papa’s death ! — it will 
seem so hard to them. Caroline, 
could you not have them up 

returned Caroline, amazed at 
the proposition. 

“You have a large house and 
plenty of servants. It would be an 
act of real kindness.” 

“ Good gracious, Sara I I’d not 
have them ; I’d not be worried with 
those boys for six weeks, if you paid 
me in gold and diamonds. They — 
who’s this 1” 

The door had opened, and one of 
the servants was waiting to make an 
announcement : 

“Mr. Oswald Cray.” 

Caroline ran to meet him. He 
looked rather surprised at her attire, 
and began apologizing in a laughing 
sort of way for his own morning coat. 
He had expected to meet only Barker 
and Dr. Ford. A greeting to the 
Hallingham people, and he went up 
and held out his hand to Miss 
Davenal. 

“You are a great stranger, Mr. 
Oswald Cray. I did not suppose 
that the formal call you made upon 
me when I settled in town three 
months ago was to be your only 
one.” 

“ I am a sadly busy man,” was his 
answer. “ Offending I fear some of 
my best friends through not visiting 

them. But I can scai’cely dare to call 
my time my own.” 

“ Out of town do you say ? Well 
that is an excuse of course. Sara, 
here’s Mr. Oswald Cray ; you used to 
know him in Hallingham.” 

The blushes tingled on her cheek as 
Mr. Oswald Cray touched her hand. 
Tingled at the thought that it was 
not the first time they had met that 
day. 

“ What have you been doing with 
yourself, Oswald, since I saw you 
before dinner ?” called out Mark, who 
was pointing out the beauty of the 
paintings on his walls to the Miss 
Fords. 

“ I have been to Pimlico since 

then. ” 


“ To Pimlico ! Oh, I know : to 
that friend of yours; Allister. It 
strikes me you go there pretty often.” 

“As often as I can spare time for,” 
returned Oswald. 

Mark laughed. Had he possessed 
that refined regard for the feelings of 
others, never wanting in the true gen- 
tleman, he had not so spoken. “7 
know. But you need not be so close 
over it, Oswald. That Miss Allister 
is a nice girl, is she not ?” 

“ Very,” was the emphatic reply. 

“ One to be esteemed. Eh ?” 

“As few can be esteemed by me.” 

Oswald spoke in his coldest, most 
uncompromising tone ; his haughty 
face turned almost defiantly on Mark. 
He was the last man to brook this sort 
of speech, and in that moment he 
despised Mark. Sara had a book in 
her hand, and she never raised her 
drooping eyelids from it. What was 
it to her now whom ‘he esteemed? 
But, she heard: all too plainly. 

There was a pause of silence ; 
rather an unpleasant one. It was 
broken by Miss Mary Ford. 

“ I must not forget to ask after 
your old servant Watton, Miss Dave- 
nal. Does she like her place ? I 
suppose you see her occasionally.” 

“ Thank you, I don’t like it at all,” 
returned Miss Davenal, hearing wrong- 
ly as usual. “ What was Mark ask- 
ing you, Mr. Oswald Cray ?” 

“ Watton is quite well ; I saw her 
this morning.” interposed Sara, who 
perhaps did not care that Mark’s 
choice of subject should again be 
brought forward. Mrs. Cray caught 
up the words. 

“ Saw Watton this morning, Sara I 
Where did you see her ?” 

And the very moment the unlucky 
admission had left Sara’s lips, she 
knew how thoughtless it was to have 
made it, and what an undesirable dis- 
cussion it might involve. 

“ Where did you see Watton ?” re- 
peated Mrs. Cray. 

“ I had a little business that way 
and called upon her,” replied Sara. 
She was obliged to speak : there was 


252 


OSWALD CRAY. 


no help for it ; and all the room 
seemed to be listening to her answer, 
which she had not time to weigh. 

Business down that way !” echoed 
Caroline. Why it is in the city I 
What business could you have there 
Xot much : nothing of moment 
to you, Caroline and Sara in her 
dismay and fear turned and began 
talking rapidly to old Dr. Ford. 

Aunt Bettina,’’ called out Mrs. 
Cray, in a slow distinct voice, what 
business took Sara to the city this 
morning ? I thought only gentlemen 
went there.” 

Aunt Bettina heard, and lifted her 
hand in momentary petulance, as if 
the subject angered her. 

You must not ask me. Sara has 
her own secrets, and goes her own 
ways since your uncle^s death. I am 
not allowed to know them.” 

Sara looked up in reply, perhaps to 
defend herself; but she remembered 
what was at stake and forced herself 
to silence. Better that the blame 
should lie upon her I She had caught 
a momentary glimpse of Mr. Oswald 
Cray : he was leaning against a table 
in the distance, his eyes fixed upon 
her, reading every change in her coun- 
tenance ; his own face stern and im- 
passive. 

What more would have been said or 
asked was interrupted by the entrance 
of another guest. A middle-sized 
man of thirty with reddish hair and 
whiskers, a free manner and voluble 
tongue. Mark started forward with 
a shout of welcome and introduced 
him to the strangers. It was Mr. 
Barker. 

have brought up the grandest 
news, Cray,” he exclaimed, in a state 
of excitement. There’s another lode 
found.” 

“ 'No !” echoed Mark, his eyes 
sparkling. Another lode ?” 

'' Dutton came upon it yesterday 
afternoon after I wrote those few 
lines to you. By Jove, gentlemen” 
— throwing his looks round the room 
— I am afraid to calculate what will 
be the riches of this mine I Mark, 
old fellow, I hope our success won’t 


drive us into Bedlam — as the case has 
been with some millionaires.” 

Miss Bettina, who had contrived to 
hear, cleared her throat. It’s a great 
deal more likely to drive you into the 
union, sir.” 

It was so unexpected a check to 
Mr. Barker’s enthusiasm that he (fould 
only stare in amazement at Miss Bet- 
tina. He had never met her before. 
“ Never mind her,” said Mark, in an 
undertone, “ it’s only old Bett. And 
she’s as deaf as a post.” 

But Mr. Barker did mind. Why, 
ma’am,” said he, going close to her, 
what do you mean ?” 

“ I can’t forget a good old proverb 
that I learnt in my young days, sir,” 
was her answer : “ one that I have 
seen exemplified times upon times in 
my course through life. ' He that 
would be rich in twelve months, is 
generally a .beggar in six.’ I know 
what good newly discovered mines 
bring, sir, however promising they 
may look.” 

Mr. Barker fairly turned his back 
upon her ; he believed she must be 
little better than a lunatic ; and gave 
his attention to Mark and the more 
sensible portion of the company. 

“ The people are up in arms down 
about there,” he said. Lots of them 
who wrote for shares in the new allot- 
ment have not succeeded in getting any, 
and I thought tiiey’d have torn me to 
pieces. I can’t help it. It’s a clear 
impossibility that the whole world 
can go in for being rich. If luck falls 
on one, it doesn’t fall on another.” 

Dr. Ford, to whom Mr. Barker had 
seemed to appeal, nodded his head. 

I hear great things of this mine, 
sir,” said he. 

Great things 1” repeated Mr. Bar- 
ker, as if the words were not suffi- 
ciently expressive. “It is the very 
grandest thing that England has seen 
for many a day. The golden wealth 
of the Spanish Main is poor, com- 
pared to it.” 

“ I’m sure I hope it will answer.” 

“ You — hope — it — will — answer ! ” 
echoed Mr. Barker, his red face go- 
ing rather purple. “ Why, sir, it 


OSWALD CEAY. 


253 


has answered. It is answering. I 
could take my interest in it into the 
money market to-morrow, and sell it 
for half a million of money. An- 
swer 

Oswald Cray came nearer. When 
shall you begin to realize he in- 
quired. 

In about six weeks from this.” 

Six weeks 1 Really to realize ?” 

We might get some loads off be- 
fore if we chose, but we don^t care to 
begin until the sales can go on unin- 
terruptedly. The lead is coming up 
beautifully ; vast quantities of it. 
You never saw such lead. It bangs 
all other in the locality into fits.” 

Mr. Barker in his joyous excitement 
was scarcely choice in his mode of 
speech. He was not particularly so 
at any time. He rubbed his hands — 
which looked as red as if they had 
been digging for ore — one against an- 
other. 

‘‘ A fellow came up to the place — 
Lord What’s his name’s agent, and 
began handling the specimens. ‘ What 
sort of ore d’ye call this V he asked. 

‘ The best that ever was dug,’ some 
of our men answered him. ‘ And so 
it is,’ said he : ^ we can’t get such as 
this out of our pit.’ No more they 
can ; not an owner of ’em in all 
Wales.” 

But you will not be selling freely 
in six weeks,” returned Oswald. It 
is impossible.” 

‘‘ Impossible, is it ?” retorted Mr. 
Barker. “ It would be in most cases, 
I grant you ; it’s not in ours. You 
go and look at the thousands of men 
on the works. The Great Chwddyn 
mine doesn’t deal in impossibilities.” 

“ Would you be so good as to tell 
me what you call that word, sir ?” 
asked the physician, putting his hand 
to his ear. “We can’t get at the 
pronunciation of it at Hallingham.” 

“ And we can’t here,” returned easy 
Mr. Barker. “ One calls it one thing, 
and one another. As to trying to 
speak it like the natives, nobody can. 
We call it the Great Wheel Bang up 
here. Not that it’s at all appropriate 
or proper to do so, but one can’t be 


breaking one’s teeth over the other. 
You see — Holloa I what’s this ? For 
me ?” 

One of Mark’s servants had entered 
with a telegraphic despatch. It was 
addressed to Mr. Barker. 

“ Your man has brought it round 
from Piccadilly, sir. He thought it 
might be of moment.” 

“ Let’s see. Where’s it from ? — 
Wales ? Ay. Another lode discov- 
ered, I’ll be bound !” 

Mr. Barker carried the paper across 
the room, and opened it under the 
lights of a girandole. He stared at 
it, more than read it ; stared at the 
words as if unable to understand 
them : and a curious expression of 
puzzled bewilderment, half wonder, 
half dismay, struggled to his face. 
Mark Cray had come to his" side, all 
eagerness ; and Oswald was watching 
them from the distance. 

“7s it another lode. Barker ?” 

“ Hush 1 There has been a slight 
irruption of water,” whispered Barker, 
thrusting the paper into his pocket. 
“ Good heavens 1 that would floor us 
at once.” ' 

Mark Cray’s mouth dropped. He 
stared as helplessly at Mr. Barker as 
the latter had stared at the despatch. 
The sight of his face awoke Mr. 
Barker’s caution. 

“For goodness sake, Cray, don’t 
look like that ! They’ll see you and 
suspect something This must be kept 
dark, if possible. I dare say it’s noth- 
ing. I’ll go back again to-night.” 

He turned away with a beaming 
face to the company, laughing mer- 
rily, talking gayly. They might have 
well deemed that two fresh lodes 
had been discovered instead of one. 
Mark, not quite so quick in recover- 
ing his equanimity, stayed where he 
was before the girandole, looking in 
it in an absent sort of manner, and 
pushing his hair back mechanically. 
Perhaps this was the first time that 
even the possibility of failure had 
come close to Mark, face to face. 

Barker was the first of the guests to 
retire, and Mark left the room with 
him. As the latter was returning to 


254 


OSWALD CRAY. 


it he met his brother, who was also 
departing. 

Not going yet, Oswald ! What 
a one you^are ! Afraid of being in 
the streets late, it’s my belief. I say I 
when am I to have the thousand 
pounds 

'‘My mind is not quite made up 
yet,” was the answer, a rather un- 
expected one to Mark’s ears. “ Mark, 
did Barker get any bad news to- 
night ?” 

“Bad news !” repeated Mark, as if 
quite at a loss to know what could be 
meant. 

“ By that despatch from Wales ?” 

“ Not at all,” returned Mr. Mark, 
volubly. “ He had forgotten to leave 
some instructions behind him, so they 
telegraphed. What put your head 
upon bad news ?” 

“ Barker’s countenance as he read 
the despatch. And yours also when 
you joined him. You both looked 
as though some great calamity had 
occurred.” 

Mark laughed blithely. “ Oswald, 
old fellow, you were always inclined 
to be fanciful. The mine is a glorious 
mine, and you’ll be a blind booby if 
you don’t secure some benefit in it. 
I’ll answer for the safety of the invest- 
ment with — with — my life,” concluded 
Mark, speaking rather strongly in his 
loss lor a simile, “ Can’t you rely 
upon me ?” 

Oh, Mark Cray I His protestations 
of the “ safety” were excusable before, 
when he believed what he said : but 
they were not now. Since that omi- 
nous message arrived, his very heart 
had been quaking within him. In the 
few confidential words he had just ex- 
changed with Barker on going out, 
the latter had said : “We must get all 
the money we can, for we shall want 
it. Water, no matter how slight the 
irruption, plays the very deuce with 
the costs of a mine.” And Mark Cray, 
to avert, or help to avert, or to con- 
ceal the calamity, was quite ready to 
sacrifice his own good faith and the 
money of his brother. 


CHAPTER XXXYII. 

IN THE TEMPLE GARDENS. 

You have heard and read of those 
false promises that keep faith to the 
eye and break it to the spirit, bringing 
a flood-tide of anguish in their train. 
As such may be described the realiza- 
tion of the long-deferred hope — the 
money — so anxiously expected by Sara 
Davenal. It came in due course, after 
a little more waiting ; that is, the order 
to receive it was sent to her ; but it 
did not bring pleasure with it. For 
the sales had not realized so much as 
was anticipated. Do they ever realize 
as much ? Dr. Davenal had expected 
there would be about three thousand 
pounds — five hundred over and above 
the sum due. But the money fell 
short by two hundred pounds even of 
this sum, and there was not enough to 
pay Mr. Alfred King. 

Oh, it was a great burthen to be 
thrown upon this girl, in her early 
years, in her solitary loneliness ! 
When the news came and the small 
sum of money stared her in the face in 
figures all black and white, she looked 
around her in despondency. She felt 
that she had no friend, save God. 

With God for her guide — and she 
knew He would be her guide — Sara 
was not hopeless. She sat down and 
considered what w- as to be done. Two 
thousand three hundred pounds cer- 
tainly were not two thousand five hun- 
dred, and she had little expectation 
that Mr. Alfred King would be satis 
fied with it. An ordinary creditor, 
whose debt was a legitimate one, would 
of course mot remit two hundred 
pounds ; but this debt was different, 
for she had- every reason to believe it 
was no legitimate debt, but mone}^ 
paid to purchase silence. Then, a 
voice whispered her, they would be all 
the less likely to remit it ; they would 
hold out for it to the last farthing. 
Whose silence she could not tell. But 
for the mysterious hint of Mr. Alfred 
King that others were interested in 


OSWALD CRAY, 


255 


this business, she might have thought 
it was his alone. The disagreeable 
impression left upon her mind by that 
interview had not in the least wore 
away ; she greatly disliked Mr. Al- 
fred King; she very greatly disliked 
the thought of visiting him again. 

^'Mark must help me,” she said. 
^^He is rolling in wealth, and two 
hundred pounds will not be much to 
him. It will be my own money. 
His covenant with my dear papa 
was to pay me three hundred pounds 
yearly for five years, and he has not 
begun the payment yet.” 

Quite true ! Mr. Mark Cray had 
not yet handed over a shilling of the 
covenant money. Miss Davenal had 
pressed for some of it at the time of 
Markus quitting Hallingham, but Mark 
had declined. She had brought it 
under his notice since ; and Mark had 
made excuses still. He was not 
bound to pay it until the expiry of 
the year subsequent to Dr. DavenaPs 
death, he said ; and it would be most 
convenient to him to pay it then. 
Too proud to press the matter further 
for her niece. Miss Davenal contented 
herself with a dignified silence : but 
she did wonder whether it was that 
Mark would not or could not pay it. 
If he could not, why then how hol- 
low, how false was all the show and 
luxury they had entered on in Grosve- 
nor Place I The real truth of the 
matter was, Markus expenses of one 
kind or another were so great, that he 
had no ready money to spare ; on the 
contrary, he was often at positive 
fault for some. And Mark was not 
a willing paymaster at the best of 
times : these careless, spendthrift men 
frequently are not. 

Yet the Great Wheal Bang was 
flourishing : how flourishing, its elated 
shareholders could tell you ; and Os- 
wald Cray, relying on the assurances 
of his brother, had embarked his thous- 
and in it. That alarming despatch, 
with its still more alarming news, had 
turned out to be more smoke than 
fire; and when Mr. Barker reached 
the mine, whither he had hurried with 
all speed, he found the danger over. 


There had been an irruption of water, 
but a very slight one ; it did not 
transpire beyond the locality ; and 
Barker and Mark kept the secret well 
from the shareholders. 

Sara went to Mark. She told him, 
speaking very gravely, that she had 
urgent need of two hundred pounds, 
to complete some arrangements of 
necessity, left in her charge by her 
father. Mark’s answer was that he 
could not help her then ; that it was 
not in his power. Perhaps he could 
not. They had not yet began to 
realize, for that untoward accident, 
slight as it was, had served to retard 
the works, and there was no lead yet 
in the market. A short while, Mark 
said, and she might come to him for 
two thousand, and welcome,, if it would 
be of any service to her. Large prom- 
ises I But Mark had always dealt 
in such. 

Sara had nowhere else to turn to 
for money in the wide world. Her 
aunt she knew could not help her ; 
Miss DavenaPs income was of a cer- 
tain extent only, and their living ab- 
sorbed it. So she wrote to Mr. Alfred 
King, and he appointed a day to meet 
her in Essex Street. 

Once more, once more, she had to 
go forth to the unpleasant interview. 
All was unpleasant connected \^ith it : 
the object, the journey, the very house, 
and Mr. Alfred King himself ; but she 
was obeying the command of her dead 
father, she was seeking to save the 
reputation, perhaps the life, of her 
living brother ; and Sara Davenal was 
not one to shrink on her own account 
from responsibilities such as these. 

But surely the spirit of mischief was 
in it all ! It seemed like an evil fate 
upon her — at least, so she thought in 
her vexation. For on this day, as on 
the other, she encountered Mr. Oswald 
Cray. 

Not at the offices, but at the gate 
of the Temple Garden. It occurred 
in this way. The hour fixed for the 
interview was twelve o’clock : Sara, 
through an unforeseen hindrance, but 
not through negligence, did not get to 
the offices until half-past. She was 


256 


OSWALD CRAY. 


told that Mr. Alfred King had an ap- 
pointment to keep, and had departed, 
after having waited for her, and could 
not be in now until two o’clock. 

How intensely she feared this man, 
the sick feeling at her heart proved to 
her. A dread arose that he might re- 
sent her want of punctuality on her 
brother. It was a very foolish dread : 
but the shrinking spirit cannot help 
these fears. Of course she must see 
him at two o’clock : and she must 
wait about until that hour came. 

Wandering into the quiet courts of 
the Temple, she came to the Temple 
Garden. The gate-keeper would not 
admit her at first ; she had not the 
entreCy he said ; but she told him her 
case ; that she was a stranger, and 
had to wait an hour and a half to keep 
an appointment at a solicitor’s in Es- 
sex Street. Her sweet face and her 
plaintive tone — for the voice catches 
the mind’s sorrow — won him over, 
and, though he grumbled a little, he 
let her enter. It was peaceful there ; 
shut in from the world’s turmoil : the 
grass was green and the paths were 
smooth ; and Sara sat on the bench 
alone, and watched the river steamers 
a-: they passed and repassed on the 
Thames. 

It was in leaving the gardens that 
she encountered Mr. Oswald Cray. 
He had business that day with a bar- 
rister in chaipbers,, and was coming 
from the appointment. Sara shrunk 
within the gate again, in the hope 
that ho might pass and not accost her. 

It was a vain one. Surprised to 
see her there, so far from home and 
alone, he inquired the reason in the 
moment’s impulse. The crimson blush, 
called into her face at the meeting, 
faded to paleness as she answered : 
An appointment. She could not say 
she was there for pleasure. 

And, besides : that utter weariness 
of spirit, when we no longer struggle 
against fate, had grown to bo hers. 
It seemed of little moment whether 
he knew her errand that day or not : 
a faintness of heart, not unlike de- 
spair, was weakening her energies. 

An appointment ?” he repeated. 


‘^Kot at the place where I saw you 
before ? Not with Mr. Alfred King 

Yes. that is where I am going,” 
she replied, feeling she could not battle 
against the questions. ^^I was to 
have seen Mr. Alfred King at twelve ; 
but I was late, and so I have to wait 
for him.” 

But it is not expedient that you 
should go there,” said Oswald. 

‘^I must go there,” she answered, 
all too energetically in her desperation. 
^‘Were the interview to lead to — to 
my death, and I knew that it would, I 
should go.” 

The words, so unlike her calm good 
sense ; the tone, so full of hopeless 
sorrow, told Oswald how full of grief 
must be the heart they came from . They 
had strolled, unconsciously perhaps, 
down the broad walk of the garden, 
and were now passing a bench. “ Will 
you sit down for a minute,” he asked, 
“ while I say a few words to you ?” 

^‘Yes; if I have time. My appoint- 
ment is for two o’clock, and I wish to 
be there rather before than after it.” 

He took out his watch, and showed 
it to her. There was plenty of time 
to spare. • 

^‘Have you to keep these appoint- 
ments often ?” 

I never kept but the one you know 
of. I hope — I am not sure — but I 
hope that the one to-day will be all I 
shall have to keep. It is a singular 
chance — that you should meet me on 
both days I” 

“I don’t think anything in the 
world happens by chance,” gravely 
observed Oswald. “ Do you recollect 
the interview I had with you at your 
house, just after your father’s death ?” 
he resumed after a pause. 

Sara turned her face to him in her 
surprise. Oh, yes.” 

And do you remember,” he con- 
tinued, his voice assuming its sincerest 
and tenderest tone, “ what I said at 
that interview ? — that nothing would 
give me so much pleasure as to be your 
friend, should you require one. Sara 
— forgive me if I go back for a moment 
to our old familiar forms of speech — 
let mo prove myself one now !” 


OSWALD CRAY. 


257 


In what manner she asked, after 
some moments of hesitation. 

If I am able to understand any 
thing of this business, you need one. 
You seem to stand alone in it — no 
one to counsel you, no one to help.’’ 

It is true,” she said, I have to 
stand in it alone. I must stand in it 
alone.” 

Suffer me to be so far your friend.” 

She faintly shook her head. '‘You 
could not be.” 

" It is true that — that — the period 
has not arrived, perhaps for either of 
us, when we had contemplated such a 
friendship might begin. But we must 
waive that : necessity alters cases. 
Sara, let me serve you : I ask it in the 
name of Dr. Davenal. Surely you can 
have no objection ?” 

Her eyes were swimming in tears 
as she looked straight before her on 
the gravel path. " In any thing but 
this, I should only be too thankful. 
Sometimes I feel that I am left with- 
out a friend in the wide world.” 

" Why not in this ?” 

" Because it is a matter that I may 
not confide to any one. It is” — she 
lowered her voice — " a secret.” 

" Sara, I will be true as steel. No 
matter what dishonor may be in it, it 
it shall be held sacred within my 
breast ; never betrayed, never spoken 
of. I judge that it is not a pleasant 
secret ; therefore I use the word dis- 
honor. It is more fitting that I 
should be engaged in this matter than 
you.” 

For a single moment the tempta- 
tion came over her to tell him what 
it was : just as the temptation to tell 
him the secret connected with Lady 
Oswald’s death had once momentarily 
assailed Dr. Davenal. But it passed 
away almost with the thought. She 
could not betray her brother ; she 
could not. Neither might she delegate 
to another the last directions left to 
her by her father. Safely grasped in 
her hand she held those sealed papers 
left by Dr. Davenal ; how could she 
transfer them even to Oswald Cray. 

" I wish I could tell it you !” she 
16 


said in a tone of pain. " But I can- 
not ; it is not possible. You will 
have guessed that this is not my own 
secret. It is a charge that was left 
to^ me by my dear father when he was 
dying : and I am obliged to fulfil it. 
He had no one to leave it to but me.” 

“ Your brother being away. I can 
understand so much. Suffer me to 
stand to you, in this, in your brother’s 
place. I am sure Captain Davenal 
would wish it.” 

The faint color of dread came into 
her cheeks as she thought how far he 
would be from wishing this betrayed 
to Oswald Cray. "I can’t tell it,” 
she murmured. 

Oswald turned his gaze upon her, 
his dark blue eyes nevermore earnest, 
more eager. 

" Will you let us consider this ac- 
cording to the dictates of common 
sense ? Is it fit that you, being what 
you are — a lady, young, refined, inex- 
perienced — should be dancing attend- 
ance at Jones and Green’s offices ; 
men who do not bear too good a rep- 
utation in the legal world, to meet 
principally Mr. Alfred King, a man 
who bears a worse ?” 

The crimson shone in her cheeks. 
Put in this way it was any thing but 
pleasant to the refinement of which he 
spoke. "I know, I know,” she said 
impulsively. " I felt terribly the go- 
ing there the day you saw me; I feel 
it again now. But indeed I cannot 
help myself. It was a solemn charge 
left me by my father, and in going 
through with it I am but doing my 
duty. God is over me,” she simply 
added. " I have had a great deal to 
try me, a great deal to bear : but I 
am striving to do right under Him.” 

Her lip quivered as she spoke, and 
she paused from emotion. It was too 
much for the stoic philosophy of Os- 
wald Cray. All the old feelings, 
pent up so long, buried only, not sub- 
dued, resumed their sway with uncon- 
trollable force, like a torrent let loose 
down a mountain’s side. He caught 
her hands in his, he bent his face near 
to hers, its whole expression one of 


258 


OSWALD CRAY. 


the deepest love, his persuasive voice, 

' ti’embling with agitation, was sunk to 
the softest whisper. 

“ Sara, my dearest, I still love vou 
better than any thing on earth. 
Heaven knows how I have striven to 
forget you since that cloud fell upon 
us. It has been of no use. Bereft of 
you, life is but one long, dreary path, 
growing more cruelly monotonous day 
by day.^^ 

Her heart beat wildly, and for one 
brief interval a hope, sweeter than any 
earthly dream, stole into it like a 
golden ray of sunshine. Only for an 
instant : she knew that it was but so 
much deceit, for him as for her. 

“Are there no means by which we 
may forget that cloud, and return to 
the past he resumed ; his voice 
hoarse with its emotion, and so low in 
tone that she could scarcely hear it. 
“ Better to sacrifice a little prejudice 
than to pass a whole life in dissatisfied 
pain. Let the dishonor — pardon me 
for thus alluding to it — rest with the 
dead : perhaps it has been wrong 
from the first to make it our sor- 
row.^’ 

She looked at him, not quite under- 
standing. He saw the doubt. 

. “Be my wife, Sara. I can then 
take these troubles upon me as my 
legal right. On my sacred word of 
honor, I will never cast a reproach to 
the past so much as in thought. No I 
I will not let your hands go until you 
tell me by word of mouth what I know 
— that your heart is mine still ; that 
we cannot be faithless one to the 
other.” 

She felt faint with the moments 
pain. The dewdrops of emotion were 
gathering on her face, and he would 
not loose her hands that she might 
wipe them away. 

“ If we never were true to each 
other, let us be so now,”,he went on. 
“ It is too solemn a moment for equiv- 
ocation : it is no time for us to pretend 
ignorance of our mutual love.” 

It was indeed no time for equivoca- 
tion, or for doubt. Sara rose superior 
to it. A reticence that might have 


been observed at another time was for- 
gotten now in her emotion and pain. 

“ I have not been faithless : perhaps 
I never shall be. But we can never 
be more to each other than we are 
now. The dishonor clings to me, and 
always will cling.” 

“ Sara ! don’t I say that I will for- 
get it ?” 

“ No ; I would never bring the pos- 
sibility of — of — I think you do not 
understand,” she broke off, lifting her 
white face to his. “ It was not only 
dishonor.” 

“ What else 

“ Crime.” 

A change passed over his counte- 
nance as he raised his head, bent to 
catch the word. Soon it brightened 
again. Never perhaps had his beset- 
ting sin been so quiescent : but pride, 
even such pride as Oswald Cray’s, is 
a less strong passion than love. 

“ It was not your crime, Sara. And 
it has passed away.” 

“ It has not passed.” 

“ Not passed 1” 

“ Not yet. There’s danger still.” 

Oswald bit his lip. “ Danger of 
what ?” 

“ Of — of — exposure,” she faintly 
said. “Do not force me to say more. 
Only believe one thing — that I can 
never be your wife. Do you think if 
there were no insuperable barrier, that 
I should make one ?” she. added, her 
face flushing a hot crimson. “ Forgive 
me : I scarcely know what I say : but 
you wished that we should speak with- 
out reserve.” 

“ Sara, let me fully understand. Do ‘ 
you imply that there exists any good 
and substantial reason stilly call it in- 
superable barrier if you will, why you 
ought not to become my wife ? Wait 
a moment. Before you give answer, 
remember that to my heart it is fraught 
with either life or* death.” 

“ I do not imply it ; I fully state it. 
Oh, don’t visit it upon me 1” she ex- 
claimed, as his face seemed to be 
assuming its old haughtiness. “ It is 
not my fault. I did not work the 
disgrace.” 


OSWALD CRAY. 


259 


‘‘No,” he answered soothingly, “it 
is not your fault. Forgive me,” he 
softly whispered, “ The blow to me 
is heavy.” 

“ It may pass from you. It will 
pass. You will form new friendships, 
new ties, and forget the old. Better 
that it should be so.” 

“ But never a new love I” he an- 
swered. “ Never one that will be to 
me what the other has been.” 

She rose from her seat. Oswald 
drew her down on it again. 

“As I hinted just now, Sara, the 
time when we may mix freely as 
friends has not yet come ; it would 
not do for either of us. But I must 
make a last appeal to you — suffer me 
to be your friend, in this one strait. Is 
it not possible that I can act for you ?” 

“ It is not possible. There are cer- 
tain reasons why neither you nor any- 
body else can do this : and, putting 
these aside, there is the weighty one 
that it was the charge bequeathed to 
me by my dying father. Thank you 
for all,” she whispered, as she sud- 
denly rose and held out her hand, 
her soft, dark eyes speaking their 
thanks to his. 

He rose also, did not release her 
band, but placed it within his arm to 
lead her up the solitary path. If 
those grave, middle-aged counsel, deep 
in their briefs behind the grave win- 
dows opposite, had glanced out at the 
interview, it probably reminded them 
of their own sweet spring-time. 

Sara withdrew her arm at the gar- 
den-gate, but he walked by her side 
through the courts to Essex Street. 
She halted there to say adieu. 

“ I suppose I must not ask to ac- 
company you ?” 

She shook her head. “ I must be 
alone. ” 

“Fare you well, then,” he said. 
“May all good angels guard you.” 

Mr. Alfred King was waiting for 
her. He was evidently not pleased 
at two hundred pounds of the sum be- 
ing missing ; but he turned it off upon 
the “other parties.” They would 
not accept it, he said, unless paid in 
full ; and he hinted at consequences 


to Captain Davenal. He would 
not sign the receipt ; told Sara it was 
useless to unseal it ; but he did write 
a receipt for the present money paid. 
Altogether, it was a less satisfactory 
interview than even the former one had 
been : and Sara quitted him with a 
sinking heart. She had not the remotest 
idea where to get the money ; and a 
despairing foreboding was upon her 
that Edward must yet pay the sacri- 
fice of his crime. 

“ How long will they wait ?” she 
asked herself as she went shivering 
up Essex Street. “ Suppose they 
send me word that they will not wait ? 
that Edward — oh, if I had but the 
means to ” 

“ Well ? Is the thing happily 
over? You said this might be the 
last interview.” 

It was Oswald Cray. He had 
waited for her. Her mind was pre- 
occupied with its fears, almost be- ^ 
wildered, and she scarcely knew what 
she answered. 

“ No I it is not happily over, ft is 
all unhappy, and I am frightened. 
The money I took them was — was — ” 
she broke off with a start. Recollec- 
tion had come to her. 

“ Was what ?” he asked. 

“ I think I forgot myself,” she mur- 
mured, as a burning flush dyed her 
face. “ My mind is full of trouble. 
Pray pardon me, Mr. Oswald Cray.” 

CHAPTER XXXYIII. 

AN IRRUPTION ON MARK CRAY. 

If any thing could exceed the pros- 
perity of the Great Wheal Bang Mine 
itself, it was the prosperity of those 
immediately connected with it. There 
was only one little drawback — ready 
money ran short. It had been short 
a long while, and the inconvenience 
was great in consequence ; but the 
prolonged inconvenience was now 
approaching to such a height that 
even that sanguine spirit, Barker, 


260 


OSWALD CRAY. 


even Mark Cray in his confiding care- 
lessness, felt that something must be 
done to remedy it. 

Of course the cause of this will be 
readily divined — that the Great Wheal 
Bang’s ore was not yet in the market. 
The heat of summer had passed, Sep- 
tember was in with its soft air and its 
cool breezes, and still that valuable 
ore had not begun to '^realize.” It 
was obstinate ore, and it persisted in 
giving the greatest possible trouble 
before it would come out of its mother 
earth, where it had been imbedded for 
ages and ages. Those who under- 
stood the matter best, and the process 
of working these mines, tedious at all 
times, did not consider that any time 
was being lost ; and it is more than 
probable that the impatience of Barker 
and Mark Cray alone caused the de- 
lay to appear unduly long. 

The money swallowed up by that 
mine was enormous, and Mark Cray 
got half dismayed at odd moments. 
The shareholders were getting tired 
of the calls upon their pockets ; yet 
they were on the whole confiding 
shareholders, believing implicitly in 
the mine and its final results. As a 
natural sequence, the mine’s wants 
being so great, its mouth so greedy a 
one, Mark Cray and his friend could 
have the less money to- play with on 
their own score : still they managed 
to secure a little for absolute personal 
wants, and tradespeople of all de- 
nominations were eager to supply 
any thing and every thing to the 
great men of the Great Wheal Bang. 
How entire was the confidence placed 
in the mine by these two masters of 
it, may be seen from the fact of their 
depriving themselves of money to 
pour it into the ever-open chasm. 
They might so easily have diverted a 
little channel into their own pockets I 
True, it might not have been quite 
the honest thing to do, but in these 
matters few men are scrupulous. 
Mark had surreptitiously sent a few 
shares into the market and realized 
the proceeds ; but he bad done it 
with reluctance ; he did not care to 
part with his shares ; neither was it 


well that the Great Wheal Bang’s 
shares should be afloat. 

Standing at the window of their 
drawing-room on this balmy Septem- 
ber afternoon were Mark Cray and 
his wife. The fashionable world were 
of course not in London, but Mr. and 
Mrs. Cray formed an exception — there 
is no rule without one, you know. 
Mark felt that he could not be absent 
from those attractive ofiices in the 
City, even for a day. It was well 
that one of them should be seen there, 
and Barker was everlastingly running 
down into Wales. Never mind, 
Carine,” he said to his wife. “We’ll 
take it out next year: we’ll have a 
three-months’ autumn trip in Ger 
many. The money will be rolling in 
upon us then, and I need not stick 
here to keep the shareholders in gooe 
humor, as I have to do now.” Carinf/ 
obediently acquiesced ; and she did it 
with cheerfulness : she had not been 
sufficiently long in her new and luxu- 
rious home to care about leaving it. 

But she solaced herself with all the 
gayety that was obtainable within 
reach. Drives out of town by day ; 
and the theatre at night, or some other 
amusement accessible in September. 
On this day they had been to a wed- 
ding at the house of some new friends 
at Richmond ; and they had but now 
returned. If you look out you may 
see the fine carriage with its four gray 
horses just turning from the door, for 
Caroline, capricious Caroline, way- 
ward and whimsical as a child, had 
stepped out of it undecided whether 
to go out again and drive in the Park 
before dinner. So she kept the car- 
riage waiting until she was pleased to 
decide not to go. 

“I am a little tired, Mark, and 
they’d be ever so long taking out those 
post horses and putting in our own,” 
she said to her husband. “ We could 
never go in the Park with four horses, 
and postboys wearing white favors. 
Empty as the drive is, we should have 
a crowd round us.” 

“ Taking you for the bride ; and a 
very pretty one ?” returned Mark, 
gallantly. 


OSWALD CRAY. 


261 


Caroline laughed ; a little all-con- 
scious laugh of vanity. She laid her 
beautiful bonnet of real lace and mar- 
abouts — and for which the milliner 
would assuredly charge £10 — on a 
side-table, and threw off her costly 
white lace mantle. The folds of her 
silk dress, its color the delicate bloom 
of the spring lilac, rustled as she went 
back to the window. 

Only think, Mark, we have been 
married nearly a year ! It will be a 
year next month.” 

Mark stood with his face close to 
the window. He was looking at the 
trees in the Green Park, their leaves 
playing in the golden light of the set- 
ting sun. Caroline flirted a few drops 
on her handkerchief from the miniature 
essence bottle dangling from her wrist, 
and raised it to her carmine cheeks. 
The day’s excitement had brought to 
them that rich bloom so suspiciously 
beautiful. 

“ And to think what a year may 
bring forth !” exclaimed Mark in a fit 
of reflection. What has this last 
done for us ? You and I are man and 
wife ; Dr. DavenaPs dead ; the Hal- 
lingham homes are broken up ; I have 
quitted forever that wretchedly wor- 
rying profession ; and we are on the 
high road of the world’s ladder !” 

And while we have gone up, poor 
Sara has gone down,” remarked Caro- 
line. Instead of being the heiress 
of the rich Dr. Davenal, mistress (if 
you can put out old Aunt Betti n a) of 
his handsome home, she is here in 
London, nobody I Mark, I should go 
mad — I declare to you I should be- 
come mad — were I to go down as 
Sara has.” 

“But you are not going down, 
thank goodness I” returned Mark. “I 
declare there’s Barker ! I thought 
he’d be in.” 

Mr. Barker was dashing up the 
street in a cab, as fast as the horse’s 
legs would go. He had been at the 
offices all day, doing duty for Mark. 
He saw them at the window, and gave 
them a nod as he leaped out. Mark 
looked at his watch and found it 
wanted yet some time to dinner. They j 


sat down now, all three together, 
leaving the window to take care of 
itself. There was always so much to 
say when Barker was there. He 
talked so fast and so untiringly; 
present doings and future prospects 
were so good ; and Caroline was as 
much at home in it as they were. 
They had had a splendid day in the 
City, Barker said volubly, except for 
grumbling. A hundred or so groan- 
ing old disappointed fellows had been 
in, who wanted to embark in the 
Wheal Bang and make their fortunes, 
but there were no shares to be had 
for love or money, and they were fit 
to bite their fingers off. Altogether, 
nothing could be more smooth, more 
delightful than affairs, and Barker had 
received news from the mines that 
morning, promising loads upon loads 
of ore in a month or so’s time. 

Mark rubbed his bands. “ I say. 
Barker, what do you say to a quiet 
little dinner at Blackwell to-morrow ?” 
cried he. “ I and Carine are thinking 
of driving down. Will you come ?” 

“ Don’t mind if I do,” returned 
Barker. “ What time ?” 

“Well, not very late. The even- 
ings are not as light as they were. 
Suppose we say ” 

Before the hour had left Mark’s 
lips, he was stopped by a commotion. 
A sound as of much talking and 
bumping of boxes in the hall below : 
of boxes that appeared to be coming 
into the house. Caroline went to the 
window and saw a cab drawn up to 
the door, a last trunk being taken off 
it, and three bandboxes in a row on 
the pavement. 

“ Why, who can it be ?” she ex- 
claimed. 

The question was soon set at rest. 
A lady in fashionable half-mourning 
entered the room and clasped Mark 
round the neck. Three young ladies 
entered after her and clasped Mark 
also, all three at once, two by the 
arms, one by the coat-tails. Mr. 
Barker’s red whiskers stood out in 
wonder at the sight, and Caroline’s 
violet eyes opened to their utmost 
[ width. 


262 


OSWALD C 11 A Y. 


We thought weVl take you by 
surprise^- darling,” the elderly lady 
was saying. “ The girls declared it 
would be delightful. I couldnT afford 
any change for them this year, Mark, 
out of my poor means, and we deter- 
mined to pay you a visit for a few 
days. And so we have come, and I 
hope you can take us in.” 

“ Yes, but don’t smother me, all of 
you at once,” was poor Mark’s an- 
swer. I am glad to see you, moth- 
er ; and I am sure my wife — Caroline, 
you remember my mother and my 
sisters.” 

It was certainly an imposing num- 
ber to take a house by storm, and 
there was vexation in Mark’s eye as 
he looked deprecatingly at his wife. 
But Caroline rose superior to the 
emergency. She came forward pret- 
tily and gracefully, and welcomed 
them all with a cordial smile. Mrs. 
Cray the elder could not take her 
eyes from her face : she thought she 
had never seen one grown so lovely. 
She withdrew them at length and 
turned them on Mr. Barker. 

But that gentleman scarcely needed 
an introduction. He was of that free 
and easy nature that makes itself at 
home without one ; and in an incredi- 
bly short time, before indeed the 
strangers had taken their bonnets off, 
he was chattering to them as famil- 
iarly as though he had known them 
for years. They were rather pleasing 
girls, these sisters of Mark — Fanny, 
Margaret, and Nina : very accom- 
plished, very useless, and bearing 
about them the tone of good society. 

‘‘You might have sent us word 
you were coming,” persisted Mark, 
whose first feeling of annoyance at 
the irruption did not subside very 
quickly. “ You might have found us 
gone out and the house shut up. 
Everybody gets out of town for Sep- 
tember.” 

“We took the risk,” said Mrs. 
Cray. 

“ The fact is, Mark,” interposed his 
sister Nina, a saucy girl, “ we did not 
dare to give you notice lest you should 
write to stop us. We have wanted 


to come all the summer, you know we 
have, but you never replied to the 
hints we gave you, or offered us the 
least encouragement that we might 
come.” 

Mark laughed, rather a constrained 
laugh. “ I have been too busy to 
think of any thing, Nina,” said he. 
But he was conscious it had been as 
she said. 

Leaving Mark to welcome them 
now, we must turn for an instant to 
the house of Miss Davenal. Sara 
was at rest, for she had paid Mr. 
Alfred King. In her desperate need 
— it surely might be called such ! — 
she wrote the facts of the case to Mr. 
Wheatley. Not telling him the de- 
tails, not saying a word that might 
not have been disclosed to the whole 
body of police themselves, but simply 
stating to him that she had very ur- 
gent need of this two hundred pounds 
for her father’s sake. She spoke of 
the money she was to receive from 
Mark Cray at the year’s end, and of 
Mark’s declining to pay her until 
then ; and if her pen was rather bitter 
here, it must be excused to her, for 
she deemed that Mark, rolling in 
luxury, behaved ill in this. She did 
not ask Mr. Wheatley to advance the 
money, but she did say that if any 
friend would do so, she would repay 
them with interest the very instant 
the money came to her from Mark. 
The result was that Mr. Wheatley 
sent her the money. But he was not 
a rich man, and he candidly told her 
he could not have done it but for the 
certainty there existed of its speedy 
return to him. Sara lost not a mo- 
ment in seeking another and a final 
interview with Mr. Alfred King. The 
papers were given up to her, the re- 
ceipt signed, all was done as specified 
ky Dr. Davenal, and the affair and the 
danger to Edward were alike at an end. 

Have you ever awoke from a 
dreadful dream to the relief of reality ? 
Not a dream of fright ; I don’t mean 
that; but one of those dreams por- 
traying some awful calamity for you or 
yours, whose very pain, if it did indeed 
overtake you, would be worse than 


OSWALD CRAY. 


263 


death ? Then you remember the 
bliss, the thankfulness rushing over 
your mind and brain when you be- 
came fully conscious, the grateful 
words bursting from your happy lips, 

Oh it was but a dream. Thank 
God, thank God 

The monient of that redawning con- 
sciousness must have stood out at 
the time as one of the most blessed 
ever vouchsafed in your chequered 
life. Just so was the relief to Sara 
Davenal. The horrible nightmare on 
her days had been lifted ; the fear 
which had been making her old before 
her time was over. Her counte- 
nance lost it look of wearing pain, 
and she seemed like a child again in 
her freedom from care. 

Yes, the dreadful nightmare was 
over, and Sara was at rest. In her 
immunity from pain, in her renewed 
happiness, it almost seemed as if the 
world might still have charms for her. 
You can look at her as she stands in 
the drawing-room by Miss DavenaPs 
side. It is the same evening, as the 
one spoken of above, when Mrs. 
Cray and her daughters made that 
irruption upon Mark. Sara is in 
evening dress, a black gauze, with a 
little white net quilling on the low 
body and sleeves. Her white cloak 
lies on the sofa, aud she is drawing 
on some new lavender gloves. But 
look at her face ! at her cheek’s rich 
color ! at the sweet smile on the lips, 
at the bright eye ! Is it the antici- 
,pated evening’s enjoyment that is call- 
ing these forth ? No, no ; the pleas- 
ant signs spring from a heart at rest ; 
a heart that had long been aching, 
worn, terrified with a secret care. 

It was very rare indeed that Miss 
Davenal went out, but she had ac- 
cepted an invitation for dinner that 
evening. She had a few friends^in 
London, not new ones (of new ones 
she had made none) ; but old acquaint- 
ances of her earlier days. The friend 
she was going to this evening. Lady 
Reid, had been her schoolfellow at 
Hallingham ; they had grown up 
together, and Bettina Davenal was 
her bridesmaid when she married 


young Lieutenant Reid, who had then 
his fortune to make. He made it 
out in India, and he came home 
colonel and a K.C.B. ; came home 
only to die, as is the case with 
too many who have spent their best 
days in the Indian empire. His 
widow lived at Brompton, and Miss 
Davenal and she liked nothing better 
than to spend an hour together and 
talk of the days when they were so 
young and hopeful. How different, 
how different to them was the world 
now ! Could it be the same world ? 
Many of you, my readers, have asked 
the very question. 

Neal had gone to the livery stables 
to order round a carriage, for Miss 
Bettina had a horror of cabs, and had 
not put her foot inside one since the 
evening of her arrival in London. 
She stood in her rich black silk and her 
cap of that fine white lace called point 
d’Angleterre, glancing from the win- 
dow and talking with Sara. They 
had had news from Bombay that 
afternoon from Edward. Great news ! 
and perhaps Sara’s cheeks owed some 
of their unusual color to this. 

Captain Davenal was married. He 
had fallen in love with a pretty girl in 
India, or she had fallen in love with 
him, and they were married. She was 
an only child, he wrote them word, 
and an heiress ; her name Rose Reid, 
now Rose Davenal. Miss Davenal 
felt nearly sure it must be a niece of 
her old friend to whom she was that 
evening engaged. Lady Reid’s late 
husband had a brother in the civil 
service at Bombay, reported to be a 
rich man, and it was probable this was 
his daughter. 

“It is just like Edward,” she said 
tartly to Sara, as she. watched for the 
carriage. “ To think that he should 
marry after a month or two’s ac- 
quaintance ! He can’t have known 
her much longer.” 

“ But he says she is so pretty, 
aunt ; so lovable I” was Sara’s plead- 
ing answer. “ And — if she is an 
heiress, I am very glad for Edward’s 
sake.” 

“Ah,” grimly returned Miss Bet- 


264 


OSWALD CRAY. 


tina, having as usual heard all awry, 
that’s it, no doubt, the money’s sake. 
I don’t forget a good old proverb : 

‘ Marry in haste and repent at leisure !’ 
Here comes the carriage.” 

They went down to it. Neal, all 
perfection as usual, assisted them in 
and took his place by the side of the 
driver. They were nearly at their 
journey’s end when in passing a row of 
houses, Sara, who happened to be look- 
ing out, saw Oswald Cray at one of the 
windows : and by his side a fair face 
half hidden by the crimson curtain ; 
the face of Jane Allister. 

A mist gathered over her eyes and 
her heart. She looked out still, me- 
chanically ; she saw the name written 
up as they left the houses behind 
them, Bangalore Terrace she an- 
swered her aunt’s remarks as before ; 
but the change within her was as if 
sunshine had given place to night. 

Why, could she still be cherishing 
those past hopes ? No : never for an 
instant. She knew that all was over 
between her and Oswald Cray ; that 
he was entirely lost to her. But she 
could not put away from her the old 
feelings and the old love ; she could 
not see him thus in familiar compan- 
ionship with another, without bitter 
pangs and wild emotion. Perhaps 
Jane Allister was to be his wife I 

Neal left them at Lady Reid’s, his 
orders being to return with the car- 
riage a quarter before eleven. When 
he reached home it was dusk ; and 
Dorcas, attired in her bonnet and 
shawl, came to him in the passage. 

I am going out a bit,” she said. 
** I want to buy a few things before 
the drapers’ shops are shut. You 
won’t mind, Neal ? I have laid your 
supper out, all ready.” 

“ Go if you like,” returned Neal. 
“ What time shall you be back ?” 

I’ll be in by nine, if I can. It’s 
past seven now. The worst of this 
London is, when once you get out, 
the time passes, and you don’t know 
how. It’s a moral impossibility for 
us country-folks to get away from the 
shop-winders.” 


So it is,” acquiesced Neal, com- 
placently. Stay out till ten, if you 
like ; but you must not be later, for I 
have to go for the ladies.” 

“ All right,” said Dorcas. I’ll be 
sure to be in by ten.” 

She departed. Neal watched her 
fairly off, and then went indoors. He 
closed the shutters of the dining par- 
lor, and went up to the drawing-room, 
where he set the candle on the table, 
and closed those shutters also. Then 
he took a leisurely survey of the 
room, apparently searching for some- 
thing, and reading, en passant, a note 
or two left upon the mantel-piece. 

What he was searching for was not 
there — the desk of Miss Sara Dave- 
nal. She has taken it into her 
room,” said he, half aloud. It was 
here this afternoon, and she was 
writing at it.” 

lie went up-stairs, higher yet, with 
his stealthy tread ; he dared to pene- 
trate into the chamber of his young 
mistress. The first thing he saw on 
entering, was the desk on a side table. 
Neal seized it and retreated. 

Carrying it down to the drawing- 
room, he bolted the door and took his 
seat before it. That little episode, the 
spoiled lock of the doctor’s desk, had 
taught him caution ; he would not 
make the same mistake with this. 
Neal was an adept at his work ; and 
by the ingenious use of a penknife 
and a piece of wire the desk was 
opened. It may be a question how 
long Neal had waited for this oppor- 
tunity. Such a one had not occurred 
for months : his ladies out, and Dor- 
cas out ; and the house wrapped in 
the silence of night, and not likely to 
be invaded. • 

And now, a word to my readers. 
Should there be any among you who 
may feel inclined to cavil at this de- 
scription of Neal’s treachery, deeming 
it improbable, let me tell you that it 
is but the simple truth — a recital of 
an episode in real life. The reading 
of the letters, the opening of the 
desks, the ferreting propensities, the 
treachery altogether were practised 


265 


OSWALD CRAY. 


by a retainer in a certain family, and 
the mischief wrought was incalcu- 
lable. It separated those in spirit 
who had never been separated before ; 
it gave rise to all sorts of misconcep- 
tion and ill-feeling; it caused ani- 
mosity to prevail between relatives 
for years : and the worst was — the 
worst, the worst ! that some of those 
relatives were never reconciled again 
in this world, for, before the truth 
came to light, death had been busy. 

As Coleridge says. 

Whispering tongues can poison truth.” 

What NeaPs motive was, I cannot 
tell you. What the motive of that 
other one was, was as little to be 
traced. There was nothing to be 
gained by it, so far as could be seen. 
It may have been that the prying 
propensities were innate in both na- 
tures ; the love of working mischief 
inherent in their hearts. Certainly 
it was the ruling passion of their 
lives. The most extraordinary inven- 
tions, the sti’angest stories were re- 
lated by the one : you will find, before 
you have done with the other, that 
they were not abjured by him. 

The first letter Neal came to*in the 
desk — at least, the first he opened — 
happened to be one from Mr. Wheat- 
ley. ByHhat he learned that two 
hundred pounds had been lent to Sara 
in the summer, for the ^‘completion 
of the payment she spoke of. Coupled 
with his previously acquired knowl- 
edge, Neal came to the conclusion 
that the trouble as regarded Captain 
Davenal was over, and the money 
paid. The precise nature of the 
trouble Neal had never succeeded in 
arriving at, but he did know that 
money had to be paid in secret on his 
account. The next letter he came 
upon, was the one received from the 
Captain that day; and if Neal had 
hoped to find groans and trouble and 
difficulty in it, he was most com- 
pletely disappointed. It was one of 
the sunniest letters ever read ; it 
spoke of his girl-wife and his own 


happiness : not a breath was there in 
it of care in any shape. Neal was 
nonplussed : and the letters did not 
afford him pleasure. 

“ The thing all settled ! — the money 
paid I’’ he repeated to himself, re- 
volving the various items of news. 
“ No wonder she has looked sprightly 
lately. Why, for months after the 
doctor’s death, she seemed fit to hang 
herself I I thought some change had 
come to her. And he is married, 
is he ! — and has picked up an heiress ! 
I don’t like that. Some folks do 
have the luck of it in this world. It’s 
a great shame I And she has no 
right to be happy, for I know she 
hates me. I know she suspects me, 
that’s more. I’ll try — I’ll try and 
deal out a little small coin in ex- 
change. There’s always that other 
thing, thank goodness ; the break with 
Mr. Oswald Cray. I wonder if she 
saw him this evening at that window ? 
I did ; and I saw the young lady too. 
I hope it’s going to be a match', 
if only to serve out this one !” 

With this charitable wish, Mr. Neal 
resumed his research of the desk. 
But nothing more of particular mo- 
ment turned up, and he soon made it 
fast again in his own artistic manner, 
which defied detection. 

And when Dorcas came in, she 
found Neal, his supper eaten, stretched 
comfortably before the kitchen fire, 
taking a doze. 


CHAPTER XXXIX. 

WAS SHE NEVER TO BE AT PEACE? 

When you have two parts of a 
history to relate, it is rather difficult 
to know which to begin with. Here 
are several people demanding our 
attention at once. Events are thick- 
ening ; and if the past few months 
were devoid of action, a great deal of 
it is crowding into the present one. 

Perhaps it will be better to give 


266 


OSWALD 

the precedence to Miss Davenal and 
Sara. News of an unpleasant nature 
was on its road to them ; but they sat 
at breakfast, unconscious of its near- 
ness, waited upon by Neal the im- 
maculate, in all confiding security, 
and entirely unsuspicious of that gen- 
tleman^s desk researches of the pre- 
vious evening. A letter came in : it 
was directed to Miss Davenal in the 
handwriting of Dr. Keen. 

“ What’s agate now exclaimed 
Miss Davenal, as she opened it. For 
it was not very usual for the doctor 
to write in the middle of a quarter. 

It ran as follows : — 

'' Dear Madam : 

“ I grieve much to have to inform 
you that an accident has happened 
to your nephew, Leopold. It being 
a half-holiday yesterday afternoon 
(granted, according to annual custom, 
on the auspicious occasion of Mrs. 
Keen’s birthday), the young gentle- 
onen had leave accorded them to go 
into the fields and gather blackberries. 
Engaged in this (hitherto deemed 
harmless) recreation, Leopold unfor- 
tunately met with a fall. In stretch- 
ing up to reach a high branch, he lost 
his balance, and fell from the top of a 
bank. I fear he may have been 
pushed, but the boys appear not to be 
quite clear upon the point. At any 
rate, he fell in some way with his arm 
doubled under him, and, on examina- 
tion, it proved to be broken. 

Deeply sorry as I am to be 
obliged to impart to you this sad 
news, I can yet qualify it in some 
degree by stating that it is a simple 
fracture. It was at once set, and the 
surgeon 'assures me it will do as well 
as possible. Mrs. Keen bids me say 
that she does not think Master Leo- 
pold has appeared very strong of late : 

I have remarked myself that he looks 
delicate. Master Davenal, I am 
happy to say, is quite well, and gives 
us every satisfaction in his studies, in 
which he takes great pleasure. 

“ With very kind remembrances 
from Mrs. Keen to yourself and Miss 


CRAY. 

Sara Davenal, and best compliments 
from myself, 

I remain, dear Madam, 
Faithfully yours, 

''John Keen. 

"Miss Davenal.” 

Miss Bettina threw the letter on 
the table in an excess of vexation. 
" If that mischievous Dick was not at 
the bottom of it, I shall wonder I” she 
exclaimed. " He pushed him off in 
his roughness. lie is rough.” 

" What is the matter, aunt ?” asked 
Sara, in amazement. 

" Matter enough I” ejaculated Miss 
Bettina. '‘ Leopold has got his arm 
broken.” 

" Oh I” She read the letter which 
her aunt handed her. Not a demon- 
strative. girl — those who have expe- 
rienced grievous causes of suffering 
rarely are demonstrative — Sara sat in 
silence revolving the tidings. " I wish 
we were near them,” she said at length. 

" It’s of no use to wish that. We 
should have been near them but for 
being driven from Hallingham. Of 
course, it is something to know that 
it is a simple fracture, and that the 
boy’s doing well” 

" Yes, I do trust the arm will do 
well,” was Sara’s answer. "But, 
aunt,” she added, after a pause, " I 
seem to think more of Dr. Keen’s in- 
timation that Leopold has not been 
strong of late, than even of the acci- 
dent. I wish they could have some 
change 1” 

" I wish we could all have it,” re- 
turned Miss Bettina, who, in the quiet 
room and close to her niece, was hear- 
ing very well this morning. 

" I know they were dreadfully dis- 
appointed at being left at Dr. Keen’s 
for the summer holidays. Leopold 
did not say so much as Dick, but he 
felt it all the more.” 

" If we could live without meeting 
crosses, this life might be pleasanter 
than it is,” was Miss Bettina’s retort. 
" What if Leopold did feel disap- 
pointed ? It would not make him 
ill.” 


OSWALD CRAY. 


267 


We don’t know, Aunt Rettina. 
How often have we heard papa say 
that the mind acts upon the body in a 
far greater degree than is usually sus- 
pected. If it were possible for Leopold 
to go for a month to the sea-side I” 
Who is to take him 

Sara hesitated. “ I suppose I could 
not, Aunt Bettina 

“ You retorted Miss Bettina. 

Do you think you are old enough 
to go gadding about unprotected, 
taking boys to watering places ? 
^♦What next 

Sara sighed. Certainly she felt old 
enough. Care, with her, had been a 
substitute for years. 

When Leopold’s arm shall be 
sufficiently cured to allow of his trav- 
elling in safety, we must have him up 
here and nurse him, that’s all. Un- 
derstand, Sara,” she added, turning 
her keen eyes full on her niece, “ I 
have no money to spare. Were it 
absolutely essential that Leopold 
should go to the sea-side, I do not 
see how I could find the money for it. 
London living is more expensive than 
I had thought.” 

Sara could only bow in silence. She 
knew that the living was expensive ; 
she knew that the sum that came over 
from Barbadoes annually, was not 
sufficient for the full expenses of the 
boys, now Dr. Davenal was gone. 
He, in his large-hearted generosity, 
had helped in so many little ways, and 
said nothing about it. The cost of the 
last holidays at Dr. Keen’s had been 
paid out of the pocket of Miss Bettina ; 
and Sara knew — she felt it every day 
to her heart’s core — that she was an 
interloper on her aunt’s bounty. 

“ I’d have every blackberry-tree in 
the land rooted up, if I had my will,” 
exclaimed Miss Bettina. “Boys are 
as venturesome as monkeys when their 
mouths are in question. They don’t 
care for their clothes or how they get 
torn ; they don’t care for their shirt- 
fronts or how they get stained ; they 
fight, and quarrel, and climb, and 
scratch their hands and faces with the 
thorns, and all for greediness — that 
they may fill themselves with these 


rubbishing berries. And now they 
have caused this mischief 1 The boy’s 
arm may be weak for life. Yes, if I 
had the power, I’d destroy every 
blackberry-tree that grows. — I should 
think Dr. Keen will interdict ‘ black- 
berrying’ for the future.” 

“ I wonder how it happened !” said 
Sara, musingly. 

“ So do I,” said Miss Bettina, in a 
tart tone. “ One would think the 
bank was as high as a house. They’d 
climb up a house, boys would, if they 
thought they should find blackberries 
growing upon its roof. Ah, never 
shall I forget — it has this moment re- 
curred to my mind — Leo’s father com- 
ing home in a sorry plight when he 
was a boy. He went blackberrying. 
He went without anybody’s knowl- 
edge, too, and was absent for hours, 
and we grew alarmed at home, as^ 
was natural, for he was but a little 
fellow of eight. I remember my dear 
mother feared he had fallen into some 
pond, but we children thought Johnny 
had gone after the wild-beast caravan, 
which had been in town exhibiting 
two bears and an elephant. He ar- 
rived at home at dusk ; and I’m sure 
he looked more fit to belong to a car- 
avan than to a gentleman’s house. 
His knees were out of his trousers, 
and his brown-holland blouse was in 
flounces, and his shirt-frill had three 
hanging rents in it, and his hair and 
face and hands were crimson with the 
stains, causing my mother to cry out 
with fear at the first sight of him. To 
crown all, he had filled his new straw 
hat with the blackberries, and the 
juice was dropping through the 
crown I John does not forget that 
exploit, I know, to this day. Your 
grandpapa gave him a sound whi})ping 
and sent him to bed supperless ; nut 
so much for the plight he had put him- 
self into, as for roaming out alone and 
frightening my dear mother. Johnny 
was ill three days afterwards wiili 
stomach-ache, from the quantity he 
had devoured. He remembers black- 
berrying, I know ; and I should think 
Mr. Leo will, after this.” 

“ I hope his arm will soon be well 1” 


268 . 


OSWALD CRAY. 


'^Dr. Keen might have mentioned 
what surgeon was attending to it ! If 
Mark Cray had remained at Ilalling- 
ham,’’ continued Miss Bettina, very 
sharply — for it was impossible for her 
to speak of that exit of Mark's with- 
out sharpness — “ he might have gone 
over by rail, and seen that it was 

being properly What do you say, 

Yeal 

Mis3 Bettina’s interruption was 
caused by the entrance of Neal. “ Mrs. 
Cray’s maid had come round and was 
waiting to speak to Miss Sara.” 

“ Let her come in,” said Miss Bet- 
tina. * 

The tone was as sharp a one as that 
just given to the absent Mark. Mrs. 
Cray’s maid, a remarkably fashionable 
damsel, did not reign in the favor of 
Miss Bettina. She came in in obe- 
dience to orders ; a pink- gauze bonnet 
on the back of her head, and a pair 
of dirty and very tight straw-colored 
gloves strained on her hands. Miss 
Bettina’s countenance lost none of its 
severity as she surveyed her. 

What do you want, Long ?” 

If you please, mem, my message 
is to JNliss Sara Davenal,” returned 
Long, pertly, for she did not like Miss 
Bettina any more than Miss Bettina 
liked her. 

'' Tell it, then. Miss Sara Dav- 
enal ’s there, you see.” 

Long fairly turned her back on 
Miss Bettina as she delivered the 
message she was charged with. She 
explained that Mr. Cray’s mother and 
sisters had arrived unexpectedly the 
previous night, and the object of her 
coming round now was, to ask if Miss 
Sara Davenal would go out with Mrs. 
Cray senior that morning. 

^‘Arrived last night unexpectedly !” 
exclaimed Miss Bettina, who had 
been bending her ear. How many 
of them ?” 

* Four,” replied Long. Mrs. 
Cray and three Miss Crays.” 

It’s well the house is large. I 
should not like to be taken by storm 
in that way.” 

“ I suppose I can go, aunt ?” 


I suppose you can’t refuse. What’s 
it for ? Where is she going ?” 

Where is Mrs. Cray going, do 
you know, Long ?” asked Sara. 

I believe she’s only going shop- 
ping, miss,” answered the girl, who 
was always’ civil to Sara. “I heard 
her say she must get a bonnet, and 
other things, before she could appear 
in London. My mistress has prom- 
ised to take the young ladies out, and 
she said perhaps you’d be so good as 
accompany Mrs. Cray senior, as she 
does not know London.” 

“ I don’t think I know it much 
better than she does,” observed Sara, 
smiling. But you can tell Mrs. 
Cray that I shall be happy to accom- 
pany her, and to render her any 
service that I can. Oh I and. Long, 
will you tell your mistress that we 
have received sad news from Dr. 
Keen ?” she resumed, as the maid was 
turning away. “ Poor little Leopold 
has broken his arm.” 

'^And that he did it scrambling 
after blackberries,” indignantly added 
Miss Bettina. 

The maid departed, saying that 
Mrs. Cray senior would be rouQd in 
the course of the morning. Sara 
went up to the drawing-room, and 
opened her letter case, which she 
used sometimes instead of her desk. 
Her first thought was to write a few 
consoling, loving words to poor Leo. 
But, ere she began, she leaned her 
aching brow upon her hand : the 
vision she had seen at the window of 
Bangalore Terrace, as they drove to 
Lady Reid’s the previous evening, 
had left its sting upon her brain. 

A slight tap at the door, and Neal 
came in. He could not but note the 
weary expression of her face as she 
looked up at him. He advanced to 
the table, some papers in his hand, 
and spoke in a low voice, as if what 
he said was for her ear alone. 

“ The postman brought this letter 
also. Miss Sara. It was inclosed in 
this envelope addressed to me by 
Master Richard. Perhaps you would 
like to see what he says.” 


OSWALD CRAY. 


269 


Neal was really honest in this. 
Possibly he saw no opportunity to be 
otherwise. Sara, in some curiosity, 
took the papers from NeaFs hands. 
The whole lot was characteristic of 
Dick. The envelope was addressed 
‘^Mr. Neal, at Miss DavenaFs. Pri- 
vate,” the proper address of their 
residence being added. On opening 
it when delivered to him by the post- 
man, Neal had found it to contain a 
sealed letter for Miss Sara Davenal, 
and a scrap of paper, evidently torn 
from a copy-book, for himself. On 
the latter, he read the following lines, 
and these he now showed to his 
young mistress. 

Dear Neal, give the note to my 
couzin Sara when nobodys buy and 
be sure dont let aunt bett see it or 
therell be a row, R. D.” 

Oh, thank you, Neal,” she said, 
heartily. But as the man left the 
room and she broke the seal, a half 
dread came over her of what it could 
contain. 

Dear sara 

The most horrid catastrofy 
has hapened, leo’s gone and broke 
his arm, and I want to tell you how 
it was done I must tell somebody or 
I shall burst, leo^s a brave littel chap 
and kept his mouth shut when old 
Keen and the doctor were asking 
questions and he let them think it 
was through the blackberries, we 
had half holliday it was Mrs. Keens 
berth day and we went after the black- 
berys, this was yesterday afternoon, 
and about 6 of us, me and Jones and 
tom Keen and Ilalliday and leo and 
Thomson, if you want to know which 
of us it was, where separated from the 
rest and got into one of farmer clupp’s 
feilds and what should we see but his 
poney trying to nible at the short 
grass, we set up a shout, which Halli- 
day stoppt for fear of being heard, 
and caught him, and then there was a 
shindy as to which 3 of us should 
have first ride, for we were afifraid 
thered not be time for the other 3 if 
the school came up, and the under 
master dogskin (thats our name for 


him lies a sneek) was with them, so 
to end the dispute we all 6 got on the 
pony and a stuning gallopp we had 
only it was rather close to sit, well 
leo was the hindmost and as he hadnt 
much beside the tail to sit on he fell 
off, but he must be a great duff for he 
had held on all round the feild once, 
he says it was Jones moved and made 
him fall and tom Keen says hes sure 
it was, for Jones who has got the 
longest legs kept jogging them to 
make the pony go and he was next to 
leo and leo held on by him, I was 
first and guided the poney and in 
taking the sweep round at the turning 
leo shot off behind, his arm was 
doubled under him and a soft duffer 
of an arm it must be for it took and 
broke, we didn’t know he was gone 
at first, Jones called out young Dave- 
naFs off, but we thought nothing and 
gallopped all round the feild again, he 
was lying there when we got back 
and his face was white and we called 
to him and he never answered so we 
stopt the poney and went to him, 
Jones tried to pull him up and leo 
screamed, and halliday calls out Im 
blest if I don’t think hes hurt, leo 
began saying he hoped he wasnt kill’d, 
you know what a regular little muff 
he is, we picked him up at last and 
when we saw his arm hang down we 
were frightened above a bit, well we 
didn’t know what was to be done, we 
caried him into the next feild where 
the poney wasnt, for fear of anybody 
suspecting and just as we had layd 
him by the bank the rest of the fellows 
came down the lane and saw us and 
tom keen called out that davenal 
junior was hurt, with that they 
came up and Marsh (that’s dogskin) 
looks up at the high bank above leo 
and sees the blackberys growing atop 
of it and sings out to leo, I know how 
this was done, you were on the top 
of that bank trying to get blackberys 
beyond your reach and you fell off it, 
well if youll believe me sara we never 
told the story to say yes, only Jones 
said says he I’m sure I dont know sir 
how' ever he managed to fall, and 
Marsh he thought he did fall off the 


270 


OSWALD CRAY. 


bank and went off to take the news to 
Keen, and us 6 all thought what a 
jolly chance it was that we had 
hapened to lay him down by the 
bank, and none of them ever saw the 
poney, leo was caried home and Mrs. 
Keen she came out with a face as white 
as his, tom how did it hapen, says 
she laying hold of tom, and we got 
affrald again, for toms uncomon fond 
of his mother, but he didnt split, and 
then Keen came up and the surjon 
came and Keen he says to leo how did 
you fall did anybody push you off the 
bank, no sir says leo, and the surjon 
he asked how it was done, and leo 
shook like any thing, and began to 
cry, affraid he should have to tell a 
story at last which he cant bare, he 
was shut up in a room then with the 
doctor and Keen and one or two more 
and we heard him cry out when they 
were setting his arm, but you know 
what a baby he is poor littel chap and 
I wish with all my hart it had been 
me to be hurt instead of him, the 
worst is I should have lost my share 
of the supper and a jolly good one 
they give us on her berthday every 
year, cakes and tarts and pidjon pies 
and lots of things and we have to 
dress for it and a heap of duffing 
girls come to it in white frocks but 
we don’t mind em much, and dear 
Sara thats the whole facts of how it 
came about and I couldnt write it 
truer if 1 were telling it to poor Uncle 
Richard himself, leos all jolly this 
morning and he is in bed and has got 
no lessons to do and he says I am to 
tell you that he’ll never get on a 
poney with 6 again and Mrs. Keens 
very kind to him, and Miss Keen 
(shes the big one you know) is going 
to read him some storys, he says I am 
to tell you it doesnt hurt much and 
oh Sara there’s only one thing we are 
sorry for, that Uncle Richard isnt 
alive to cure him because bed have 
him home to Hallingham to do it and 
perhaps me as well and I should get 
holliday from these horrid books, I 
shall send this to neal for fear of aunt 
bett, and mind you hide it, and dont 
let a sight of it reach her, we are 


aufully afraid of that about the poney 
getting to old keens ears for thered 
be the dickens to pay, yours affection- 
ately '' Dick. 

“ p s leo sends his love and he 
hopes you wont be angry with him 
for breaking his arm and I am writ- 
ing this after school at twelve instead 
of playing. Good buy.” 

Sara smiled, in spite of herself, as she 
folded up the letter. But she thought 
it rather a wonder there had not been 
a few broken legs among the “6,” in- 
stead of one broken arm. One minute 
later and Miss Davenal would have 
seen it. She came into the room with 
her things on. 

^‘Are you going out, aunt ?” asked 
Sara, rising from her seat. 

You can’t,” returned Miss Bettina 
misapprehending the words. You 
must wait at home for Mrs. Cray. I 
am going to match that wool.” 

Is Neal going with you ?” 

I don’t want Neal. Do you sup- 
pose I shall get run a’way with ? I 
have sent him out elsewhere.” 

Miss Bettina departed, and Sara 
wrote her letter to Leo. She wrote 
also one to Dick, giving him sundry 
entreating warnings against ponies 
and such like forbidden fruit. But 
she had little faith, as she folded it, 
that it would have much effect on 
daring Dick. 

Sara got ready for Mrs. Cray, and 
went down to the dining-room. She 
took up a book, but had not be(ft 
looking at it many minutes when sh^ 
saw Neal coming up an(^ talking to a 
young person, whose condition in life 
it was rather difficult to guess. In 
these days of dress^ it is difficult. 
She had a pretty face, Sara could see 
that, though a veil covered it ; her 
gown was one of those called a 
‘‘washing silk” — and very much 
“ washed out ” it seemed to be ; and 
a smart shawl just flung on the shoul- 
ders trailed on the ground behind. 
But for this trailing shawl and a sort 
of general untidiness, there would 
have been something superior about 


OSWALD CRAY. 


271 


the girl. In the face she looked like 
a lady, and Sara had seen many a 
lady worse dressed. 

Sara, behind the blind, could see 
them, but they could not see her. 
Neal stood a moment at the door, 
and then looked down over the rail- 
ings of the area. 

‘^Are the ladies out he asked. 

Yes,’^ came back for an answer 
in Dorcas’s voice. The woman evi- 
dently did not know that Miss Sara 
had not accompanied her mistress. 

You can come in then,” Sara dis- 
tinctly heard Neal say to the lady — 
if lady she was. And he opened the 
door with his latch key. 

They stood talking in the passage 
for some little time in an under-tone, 
and then Neal took her into the back 
room. It opened to the dining-room 
with folding-doors ; but the doors were 
always kept closed : and indeed the 
back room was chiefly used as Neal’s 
pantry. Sara, who at first had been 
doubtful whether it might not be a 
visitor to herself, came to the conclu- 
sion that it was only a visitor to Neal, 
and she resumed her reading. 

But the voices grew rather louder. 
And the words “ Captain Davenal” 
caused her to look up with a start. 
No wonder she should start at that 
name, remembering the past. A sud- 
den fear came over her that some- 
thing or other connected with that 
past was again threatening her 
brother. 

She could not hear more, for the 
voices dropped again to their covert 
tone. Another minute and Neal was 
conducting the stranger to the front 
door. 

We shall hear more by the next 
mail; but there’s not the slightest 
doubt he’s married,” Sara heard him 
say as he passed the room. “ The 
lady is an heiress : a Miss Reid.” 

^‘Well,” cried the other voice, 
“I’ll have satisfaction. I’ll have it 
somehow. I don’t care what punish- 
ment it brings him to. I’ll have it.” 

The visitor went away*. Neal closed 
the street-door upon her and turned 
to behold his young mistress at that 


of the dining-room, a scared look in 
her eyes, a white shade upon her 
face. 

“ Neal ! what has that young” — 

Sara hesitated between the words 
person and lady, but chose the former 
— “ person to do with Captain Dave- 
nal ?” 

She had spoken without reflection 
in her impulse ; in her renewed fear, 
which she had deemed buried with the 
past. Neal for once in his life was 
confounded. He did not speak im- 
mediately : he was probably striving 
to recall what had been said, incon- 
venient for her to hear. 

“ Tell me at once, Neal ; I in- 
sist on your speaking,” she reiter- 
ated, attributing his hesitation to un- 
willingness to speak. “Indeed it is 
better that I should know it. What i 
was she saying about my broth- 
er ?” 

That alarm of some nature had 
been aroused within her, that she 
was painfully anxious, and that the 
alarm and anxiety were connected 
with Captain Davenal, Neal could 
not fail to read. But his speech was 
certainly less ready than usual, for he 
still kept silence. 

“ I heard you tell her that Captain 
Davenal was married ; that further 
news would be in by the next mail,” 
pursued Sara, growing more in- 
wardly perturbed with every moment. 

“ What was it to her ? Who is she ? 

For what purpose did she come here ? 

Neal ! can’t you answer me ?” — and 
her voice grew quite shrill with its 
alarm and pain. 

“ Miss Sara — if I hesitated to an- 
swer, it is that I do not like to speak,” 
he said at length. “ I tell the young 
woman she must be mistakeEi in what 
she says — that it can’t he. But she 
won’t hear me.” 

“What is it that she says ? Have 
you seen her before to-day ?” 

“ She has been here once or twice 
before. But for understanding that 
you and my mistress were out, I 
should not have allowed her to come 
in this time. I am very sorry that it 
should have happened, miss.” 


272 


OSWALD CRAY. 


“ But what it returned Sara, 
nearly wild with suspense. ^^What 
has she come for 

“ She has come to ask questions 
about Captain Davenal.” 

'' But what about him ? What is 
he to her 

Neal coughed. He took out his 
handsome silk handkerchief — he al- 
ways used very handsome ones — and 
wiped his mouth. Sara trembled. 
His manner was unpleasantly mys- 
terious, and it seemed that she was 
on the verge of hearing something 
terrible. 

Does she know my brother ?” 

“ She says she does. Miss Sara, I 
would have given a great deal to pre- 
vent this happening to-day. It will 
only worry you, and I dare say I 
could still have put her off and kept 
her quiet.” 

‘‘ Neal, tell me the worst,” she 
cried, her voice and heart alike grow- 
ing faint. I must hear it now.” 

'' Well, Miss Sara, she says she is 
the wife of Captain Davenal.” 

<< She — says — she — is-^the — wife 
— of — Captain Davenal !” 

The words were echoed slowly in 
very astonishment, a pause between 
each. Yague as her fears had been, 
they had not touched on this. 

'' It is what she says. Miss Sara. 
I told her it must be one of two 
things — either that she was deceiving 
me in saying it, or that she was her- 
self deceived. But she insists upon 
it that she is his true and lawful 
wife ; that she was married to him 
nearly twelve months before he went 
abroad. She says my late master. 
Dr. Davenal, knew of it.” 

Sara stared at Neal in a sort of 
helpless manner. Never for a moment 
did it occur to her to question the 
truth ; her mind accepted it ; a ter- 
rible calamity ; worse, it seemed in 
this moment, than all that had gone 
before. 

“ She came here this morning in 
consequence of hearing of the Cap- 
tain’s marriage to Miss Reid. I ac- 
knowledged that news had come home 
to that effect : it would have been 


quite useless, you see. Miss Sara, to 
deny what’s known publicly.” 

Neal I Neal ! you will not men- 
tion this ?” came the feverish wish, 
the first uttered in her bewilderment. 

You will guard it faithfully. We — 
I — some one must see what can be 
done.” 

''You may entirely depend on me, 
Miss Sara,” replied Neal, speaking 
more impressively than was his wont 
— Neal the impassive. " Of course, 
miss, the chief thing will be to guard 
against exposure.” 

Sara turned into the dining-room, 
mind and body alike sinking. A sick, 
faint fear came over her that this must 
be the secret connected with her brother 
which had been disclosed that long, 
past night to Dr. Davenal. Another 
moment, and she did not see how this 
could be. There would have been no 
crime in it : Captain Davenal was not 
married then. Her brain was in a 
chaos of perplexity, her mind agitated 
with doubt. If this young woman — 
lady — whatever she might be, was 
Edward’s wife, how could he. have 
married Rose Reid ? Was it the 
money tempted him ? Calm, self- 
controlled though she was usually, a 
groan of despair broke from her 
lips. 

Neal in the back room thought she 
called him, and came round to the 
dining-room door. She looked up as 
he stood there, and stared at him, just 
as though she had forgotten who he 
was. 

" Did you call, Miss Sara ?” 

<‘I — I — I did not call. Neal — do 
you know — what the name is ? — I 
mean — what it was ?” 

" Yes, miss, I know so much as that 
— Catherine Wentworth.” 

He retired, leaving Sara alone. Al- 
most a rebellious thought was stealing 
over her — was she never to be at rest ? 
Not at much rest just then certainly ; 
for Mrs. Cray had driven to the door 
and was asking for her. 

Sara tied her bonnet on mechani- 
cally and went out. Mrs. Cray was 
seated in a fly. She would not alight 
tbeL\ she said ; she had a great deal to 


OSWALD CRAY. 


273 


do. Sara stepped in. Mrs. Cray was 
an imperious-looking woman, fair and 
pale, with a handsome face. Sara 
thought her over-dressed and very 
fidgety. They were not much ac- 
quainted at Hallingham. 

I have nothing to wear,^^ she said 
to Sara. I want a host of things. 
A bonnet first. Mrs. Mark Cray has 
given me the address of a superior 
dress-maker. She is a little selfish, is 
she not 

Who is cried Sara in answer to 
the sentence, which came out rather 
abruptly after the rest. 

^^Mrs. Mark Cray. To confess to 
you the truth, I think she might have 
lent me the carriage this morning, in- 
stead of sending me out in a hired fly, 
and keeping the carriage for herself 
and the girls. It seems to be the way 
of the world now-a-days ; the young 
before the old. She is Markus wife, 
and I am only his mother.” 

Whether Sara would have found a 
suitable answer is uncertain. Some- 
thing outside completely took away all 
thoughts of it. They were at that mo- 
ment passing the War Office; and 
coming from it with an angry and de- 
termined look upon her pretty face, 
was the person whom she had just 
heard called Catherine Wentworth. 
Sara shrunk back in the cab^s corner, 
dismay on her countenance, dismay in 
her heart Had she already de- 
nounced Captain Davenal at head- 
quarters ? 

From milliner’s to linen-draper’s, 
from linen-draper’s to dress-maker’s, 
one place after another continually, 
until Sara was tired to death, the day 
wore away. The afternoon was get- 
ting on when the last commission was 
done, and Mrs. Cray, who had put on 
the new bonnet just bought, had leis- 
ure to think of the horse and driver. 

Poor things, they must want some 
repose,” she remarked, as she came 
out of the Pantheon, Well, there’s 
only one place more. Will you tell 
the man, my dear ?” she added, as she 
got in. Parliament Street. You 
know the number, I suppose,” 

17 


‘‘ What number ?” inquired Sara. 
** Where to in Parliament Street ?” 

To Mr. Oswald Cray’s. Brack- 
nell and Street, I think, is the name 
of the firm.” 

There ?” returned Sara in her dis- 
composure. can’t go there.” 

Not go there. My dear, I must 
go there. Mr. Oswald Cray is my 
step-son. I shall call in for a minute 
to let him know I am in London.” 

Opposition would be worse than 
acquiescence. Besides, what could be 
her plea ? Sara, all her pulses flutter- 
ing, spoke thp address to the driver, 
and took her place in silence opposite 
Mrs. Cray. 

♦ 

CHAPTER XL. 

MRS. BENN’s wrongs. 

Then, Benn, I’ll not have it done ! 
You can’t go.” 

But I tell you I have got my or- 
ders. I am sent.” 

And who gave you the orders, 
pray, Joe Benn ? Who sent you ?” 

Mr. Oswald Cray. And the best 
thing for you to do is to hold your 
tongue, and take off that there guy of 
a bonnet, and hide your bare arms, 
and put on a apron that’s clean, and 
otherwise make yourself decent, for 
you have got to do it. And when folks 
have got to do a thing, they may as 
well make up their minds to do it in the 
best way and readiest way they can.” 

Mr. Benn, in thus breathlessly tel- 
ling his wife she had '‘got to do it,” 
did not allude to the little items of 
personal embellishment he mentioned, 
but to something else which Mrs. 
Benn abhorred above all things — that 
of waiting on gentlemen. It happened 
now-and then that a luncheon or other 
meal would be ordered at the offices in 
Parliament Street for some stranger or 
friend stopping in London, which meal 
Mrs. Benn had to prepare, and her 
husband to wait at. On this day, Mr. 


274 


OSWALD CRAY. 


Street had ordered mutton-chops to be 
ready for two o’clock and the tray laid 
for three persons ; and this it was that 
was discomposing Mrs. Benn. In the 
first place, it was one of those oft- 
recurring periodical battles of her life 
— a cleaning day ; in the next place, 
her husband had just given her the 
startling information that she would 
have to wait at the meal as well as to 
cook it. And a fine object you be to 
do it I” he had wound up with in a 
mutter to himself. 

Certainly Mrs. Benn did not appear 
to particular advantag^to-day, looking 
at her in an artistic point of view. 
You have had the pleasure of seeing 
her once before in the high costume 
donned for the occasion of 'those days 
specially marked in her calendar. I 
don’t think there’s much change. Her 
bonnet, black once, rusty brown now, 
is on, brim downwards, crown up, 
strings tied in a knot at the back ; her 
apron is a piece of wrappering off a 
bale of goods, embellished with sun- 
dry holes, and fastened round her with 
an iron skewer ; and her gown turned up 
under it is pinned into a heap behind. 
She stands over the dutch oven, her 
arms bare and black, and a fork in her 
hand ; and ever and anon as she stoops 
to turn or touch the chops in the dutch 
oven, the gathered gown sways itself 
up at the back, not unlike a sail. Mr. 
Benn is in his shirt-sleeves, having 
taken off his coat to brush it prepara- 
tory to going out. 

It’s sure to be the case ! I’ve 
marked it times and times again I” 
burst forth Mrs. Benn, trying to fling 
off a live coal which had intruded 
itself into the dutch oven. ** If ever 
there’s lunch or any bothering extra 
of that sort wanted, it’s safe to be on 
my cleaning day I Mr. Street have 
got no more consideration nor a stalk- 
ing gander; and Mr. Oswald Cray 
have got as little. They might re- 
member my cleaning days, and spare 
a body on ’em.” 

'^And a fine speech that is,” said 
Mr. Benn, in a reprimanding tone. 

You’d better not let it come a nigh 
their ears. We are here, you and me, 


to do what work’s required of us, at 
any hour, whether it’s cooking or 
whether it’s waiting, and your ord’- 
nary work must give way when it’s 
wanted to give it. They’d soon get 
other servants in our places.” 

He comes to the top o’ the stairs 
just as the clock was going one,” ob- 
served Mrs. Benn, paying no more 
attention to the words of her husband 
than if she had been deaf. “ ‘Are you 
there ?’ he calls out, and I looked up 
and see it was Mr. Street. ‘ Yes, sir,’ 
says I, ^ I be and I was in a cloud 
of dust at the moment fit to smother 
you, a doing out of that there wood 
and bottle cupboard. ‘ Oh,’ says he, 
‘some mutton-chops for two o’clock, 
and lay the tray for three. And do 
’em well,’ says he, ‘and a dish of 
mashed potaters.’ A nice thing that 
was for me to hear I — and to have to 
go out the figure I be, after chops, and 
to be hindered in my cleaning a good 
two hours ! Ain’t that enough, Joe 
Benn, without having to turn to and 
wait ?” 

“I can’t help it,” said Joe, civilly, 
as he put on his coat. “If I am 
ordered work out of doors I must go 
about it, just as you must the work, in. 
Mr. Oswald Cray has sent me down 
to Limehouse, and I must be back 
before the office closes. Don’t I tell 
you I can’t even stop for my dinner ?” 

He went away without more words. 
He probably would have had a few 
sent after him but for an unlucky catas- 
trophe that occurred at the moment : 
the saucepan of potatoes fell on its 
side, and enveloped Mrs. Benn and 
the dutch oven in a mass of steam. 
It took all that lady’s best attention 
to remedy it ; and when she looked 
up Mr. Benn was gone. 

Yery reluctantly indeed did she set 
about making herself presentable ; but, 
as Benn had said, there was no help 
for it. She washed her face and hands, 
and turned down the gown and drew 
down its sleeves, and put on a white 
apron, and replaced the choice bonnet 
with a clean cap, grumbling bitterly 
all the time. And at the appointed 
hour she took up the luncheon tray. 


OSWALD CRAY. 


275 


Three gentlemen partook of the 
meal : Mr. Street, Oswald Cray, and 
a well-known contractor who had only 
that day arrived in London from 
Spain, and was going into the country 
to his works by a four-o’clock train. 
They were discussing business while 
they ate. 

A certain projected line of rail in 
Spain was just being organized. 
Bracknell and Street were the engin- 
eers, and it was proposed that Mr. 
Oswald Cray should go out as super- 
intendent. The details of the affair 
do not concern us : but it must be 
mentioned that the sojourn in Spain 
would be likely, from certain atten- 
dant circumstances, to prove of great 
advantage to Mr. Oswald Cray in a 
pecuniary point of view. 

After the departure of the guest, 
Mr. Street and Oswald remain^ to- 
gether a few minutes talking. You’ll 
not think of declining it, of course, 
Cray,” remarked the latter. I only 
wish I could go I” 

I don’t see how you will manage 
without me here,” remarked Oswald. 

^‘We must manage in the very 
best way we can. Bracknell must be 
with us more than he has been lately. 
Of course we could send somebody 
else to- do the Spain business, were it 
impossible that you could leave ; but 
it is not impossible, and I speak in 
your interest when I say it is a chance 
you ought not to miss.” 

True. I shall like to go, if home 
affairs can spare me. I suppose it 
will involve a stay there of two 
years ?” 

Nearer three,” remarked Mr. 
Street Then we will consider 
your going as settled ; and things 
must be at once prepared at home 
contingent on it.” 

** Yes,” acquiesced Oswald. ** Wait 
a moment,” he added, as Mr. Street 
was turning away to descend. 
want to speak to you about Allister. 
I wish you would take him on 
again.” 

Mr. Street pursed his lips up. 
He had a round face and small light 
eyes, in which sat a hard look. 


Whether it was the hard look or not, 
I can’t tell, or whether it was that 
the look was only the index of the 
nature — as it generally is — certain it 
was, that Mr. Street was not liked in 
the house. Oswald knew the sign of 
the contracted lips. 

What is your objection ?” he 
pursued. ^'Allister’s quite well ap- 
parently, and ” 

''Apparently I there it is,” inter- 
rupted Mr. Street " It’s a great 
hindrance to business, these sickly 
clerks, well one day, ill the next ; es- 
pecially in such a house as ours. We 
have no time for it.” 

"Allister seems well. At one time 
I thought his lungs were fatally dis- 
eased, but I begin to believe I was 
entirely mistaken. It is nearly twelve 
months since the worst symptoms 
left him, and he seems now as strong 
as I am.” 

"Pooh!” said Mr. Street, "A 
warm climate, if he could get to it, 
might set him up ; but in this place 
of change and fogs and damp, rely 
upon it he’ll not keep well long.” 

Oswald was silent. So far as the 
warm climate went, he agreed with 
Mr. Street. Had Frank Allister the 
opportunity of going to one, it might 
set him up for a long life. 

"How has he lived?” asked Mr. 
Street. " He has no money.” 

" He has done work at home lately. 
We have furnished him with some to 
do : plans and estimates, and such 
like. He has had it also from another 
house or two.” 

" Is that sister of his with him 
still ?” 

" Yes. She is a faithful ally. She 
has taken a daily situation as com- 
panion to a blind lady. It all helps 
to bring grist to the mill. Allister is 
very anxious to come back, Mr. Street. 
I really see no reason why he should 
not. I am sure of one thing — that he 
is as capable of doing his work here 
now as any clerk we employ.” 

Now. Will you guarantee that 
he shall continue capable of doing 
it?” 

I wish I could guarantee it.” 


276 


OSWALD CRAY. 


Of course. If wishes were horses 
—you know the old adage. Were I 
to take him on now, perhaps in winter 
he would get ill, and have to leave 
again. We can’t afford those inter- 
ruptions.” 

I trust indeed he would not. He 
passed well through last winter ; im- 
proving in it every day.” 

Last winter was a mild one, ex- 
cept for a little extreme cold we had 
in November. Next winter may be 
a severe one. I tell you, Cray, there’s 
only one safeguard for Allister : and 
that’s a warmer climate. At any rate, 
a more settled one. Such is my 
opinion.” 

Oswald would not give in. ** Con- 
sidering that Allister is now in health 
and strength ” 

Strength for him,” put in Mr. 
Street. 

‘‘Well, strength for him, if you like 
to put it so, but I am sure you would 
be surprised to see how strong he 
does appear to be. Considering this, 
and that he believes himself to be per- 
manently and radically cured, it will 
sound very hard to him if I tell him 
that we cannot take him back again.” 

“ If your wish is to have him back 
—that is, if you make a personal mat- 
ter of it — have him,” said Mr. Street. 
“ I see you want it.” 

“ Yes, I do,” said Oswald. “ I wish 
him back, both as a matter of personal 
liking and that his services are effi- 
cient. This departure of mine for 
Spain will involve the taking on of at 
least one more clerk. Let it be Allis- 
ter.” 

“ Have it as you like, then,” said 
Mr. Street. “ Let Allister come back 
at once. Tell him to come on Mon- 
day.” 

So it was settled. They went down 
talking together, and encountering 
Mrs. Benn on the lower passage with 
a hearth-broom in her hand. 

“ May I take the tray away, gentle- 
men ?” 

Oswald nodded, and the woman 
went up-stairs, her face and her tem- 
per as crusty as they could be. 

‘‘ I Wonder the worlds let go on I” 


she ejaculated, as she flung the broom 
on a chair and began to put the things 
together on the tray. “ I wonder how 
they^d like to have a day’s cleaning to 
do, and to be called off for three mortal 
hours in the midst of it I It’s four 
o’clock if it’s a minute, and I was 
stopped in my work at one ; and if 
that’s not three hours, I’d like to 
know what is. I’ve set to nothing 
since ; how can I, dressed up to please 

them ? and I’m sure my 1 what 

cormorants 1” 

The subjoined sentence, given utter- 
ance to by Mrs. Benn in her surprise, 
had reference to the mutton-chop dish, 
on which her eyes had just rested. 
She stood a moment gazing at it, her 
hands unlifted. 

“If they haven’t gone and ate ’em 
all ! Nine thick chops, and only the 
tails of two of ’em left 1 Well, I’d 
not own to such famine if I was gen* 
tlefolks. I sent ’em up for show — for 
I don’t forget the trimming I got for 
skimping the number last time chops 
was ordered— never supposing they’d 
eat ’em. I meant two of them chops 
to come up again for Mr. Oswald 
Cray’s dinner; they’d have done for 
him, warmed up. And now they’re 
demolished I — and I must dance out 
again to that butcher’s I — and Benn 
a wanting something with his tea, as 
he’s sure to do, going out without his 
dinner I — and me with all the lower 
part of the bouse to do yet 1 — and got 
my things to change again I It’s a 
wonder the world do go on 1” 

She carried the tray down; but 
what with glasses and other things, 
she could not carry all at once, and 
had to make two journeys of it. It 
did not add to her geniality of mood. 
Arrived in the kitchen the second 
time, she took the things off the tray, 
folded the cloth carefully, for in such 
matters she was very particular, and 
laid it in the dresser-drawer. Then 
putting the other things in a stack to 
be washed by-and-by, she began to 
make preparations for resuming the 
interrupted work. As a preliminary 
to this, she slowly turned her gown 
up over the white apron, and looked 


OSWALD CRAY. 


277 


round for the broom. After casting 
her eyes in all directions, and casting 
them in vain, recollection returned to 
her. 

Drat the broom ! If I haven’t 
gone and left it up-stairs. I wish 
their luncheons and their bother was 
far enough !” 

She turned dcrwm her gown again, 
possibly lest she might encounter either 
of her masters on the way, and pro- 
ceeded up the kitchen stairs. The 
broom lay on the chair where she had 
flung it in Oswald’s sitting-room. As 
she took it up, she espied some crumbs 
under the table, and stooped down to 
brush them carefully into her hand, 
grumbling all the while, 

** It’s just like ’em 1 dropping their 
crumbs down like so many children 1 
The trouble I’d used to have with that 
when old Bracknell was here 1 He’d 
shake his table-napkin on the carpet, 
he would ; and Bean, he’d come away 
and never-= ” 

Is this the room ? Is he here ?” 

To be interrupted by these words 
in a female voice close to her elbow 
brought Mrs. Benn to her legs at 
once, A lady in a gay white bonnet 
and violet-tipped feathers, with other 
attire on the same grand correspond- 
ing scale, stood confronting her. Mrs. 
Benn could only stare in the first mo- 
ment from consternation. And the 
lady stared too, first at the room, then 
at Mrs. Benn, waiting for her question 
to be answered. 

Is who here ?” cried Mrs. Benn. 

Mr. Oswald Cray, We were 
ushered up here by a young man 
whom we saw in the passage. He 
said this was Mr. Oswald Cray’s 
room, and he would send him to us. 
Is he well ?” 

Mrs. Benn naturally looked round 
for some one to whom the ''we” 
could apply, and saw a young lady at 
the door. A sweet-looking young 
lady whose manner was timid and 
hesitating, as if she did not like to 
advrance farther into the room. You 
need not be told that it was Sara 
Davenal. She had wished to remain 
in the fly while Mrs. Cray came up ; 


but Mrs. Cray had insisted on being 
accompanied by her indoors, and 
Sara was obliged to yield, for she 
was unable to give any good reason 
against it. How could she bint at 
the relations which had once existed 
between her and Mr. Oswald Cray ? 
— at the love that lingered still ? 

" He’s as well as a body can be ; 
leastways if his luncheon is any 
thing to go by, which he have just 
eat,” replied Mrs. Benn in answer to 
the question of the lady, whom she 
had not taken a fancy to as she was 
permitting her tone to show. " Did 
you want him ?” 

" I have come to see him,” was the 
answer. " He is my step-son, and 
we have not met for a good while.” 

Mrs. Benn’s manner began to thaw. 
In her crusty way she w'as fond of her 
master Mr. Oswald Cray ; and she 
thought she might as well be civil to 
the lady before her as his step- 
mother, 

" Take a seat, ladies,” she said, 
dusting two chairs with her white 
apron, and disposing herself to be 
cordial and confidential. Fate seemed 
to be against Mrs. Benn’s cleaning 
that day, and we most of us resign 
ourselves to what can’t be helped. 
This appearance of Mr. Oswald Cray’s 
step-mother, Mrs. Benn regarded as 
an era in that gentleman’s life, for she 
could not remember that during his 
whole residence there any living rela- 
tive had come to inquire after him, 
with the exception of his brother. 

" His step-mother,” cried she ap- 
provingly, as she stood behind a chair 
and rested her arms on the back of it, 
one hand grasping the brush. "And 
might your name be the same as his, 
ma’am — Mrs. Oswald Cray ?” 

" I am Mrs. Cray,” replied the 
lady, with emphasis on the one word, 
and an impulse to resent the familiar- 
ity. But she felt inclined to encourage 
the woman in her sociability, feeling 
a curiosity as to the every-day move- 
ments and doings of Mr. Oswald Cray. 

Sara sat a little apart, near the 
centre table. Her cheek rested on 
her fingers, and her eyes were me. 


278 


OSWALD CRAY. 


chanicallj fixed on a small chart or 
plan, which lay at the end of the 
table opposite to where the luncheon 
tray had been. Quite mechanically 
her thoughts were buried in the un- 
happy occurrence of that looming : 
the advent of the stranger at her 
house and the startling communica- 
tion of Neal. 

The gossip of Mrs. Cray and the 
woman fell on her ear like the hum- 
ming of gnats in summer ; heard, but 
not heeded. Oswald did not appear ; 
and Mrs. Cray, always restless, as 
Sara had that morning found out, 
started from her seat and said she 
should go to the rooms below in 
search of him. 

Mrs. Benn had this peculiarity — and 
yet, I don^t know that it can be called 
a peculiarity, since, so far as my ex- 
perience teaches me, it is characteristic 
of women in general — that however 
pressing might be her occupations, if 
once called off from them and launched 
into the full tide of gossip, the urgent 
duties-would give way, and the gossip 
be willingly pursued until night should 
fall and stop it. Mrs. Benn, deprived 
of her chief listener, the elder lady, 
turned her attention on the younger. 

Would you believe it, miss,’’ she 
said, drop{)ing her voice to a confi- 
dential tone, his mother’s coming 
here this afternoon bears out some 
words I said to my husband only a 
day or two ago, just as one’s dreams 
gets bore out sometimes. I says to 
Benn, ^ Mr. Oswald Cray’s relations ’ll 
be up, now there’s going to be the 
change.’” 

What change ?” asked Sara. 

His marriage, miss.” 

Ah, she was all too awake to the 
present now. Her lips parted ; her 
brow turned cold. ‘‘ His marriage ?” 

^^It can’t be nothing else but his 
marriage,” repeated Mrs. Benn. “Benn 
was waiting on him at dinner, and he 
told him there was perhaps going to 
be a change, that he wouldn’t have 
him to wait on long, for he might be 
leaving. Joe Benn he comes down 
and repeats it to me, all wondering, 
like the gaby he is, what his master 


meant by it. Why, his wedding, of 
course, says I ; it don’t take a con- 
jurer to tell that. Well, she’s a nice 
young lady.” 

Sara had her hand raised to her 
face, apparently pushing back her 
braided hair. “ Who is she ?” came 
breathing from her lips : and she could 
hardly have helped asking it had it 
been to save her life. 

“ Well, it’s Miss Allister, if it’s any- 
body,” returned Mrs. Benn, in appar- 
ent contradiction of what she had just 
asserted. “ They are as thick as two 
peas, and I know he goes there a’most 
every evening.” 

Sara had heard enough. In her 
confusion of mind she had scarcely 
noticed the change taking place in the 
room. With the last words Mrs. 
Benn and her brush glided away, and 
Oswald Cray had come in. Some one 
had told him that a lady was waiting 
for him in his room, but he was busy 
at his desk at the moment and waited 
to finish what he was about. Nothing 
could well exceed his surprise when 
he saw seated there Miss Sara Dav- 
enal. 

A delicate fiush, like the faint pink 
on a sea-shell, was on her cheeks as 
she rose. She saw by his manner 
that he was ignorant of his step- 
mother’s visit, and Sara felt a little 
embarrassed as she explained. “ She 
had only come with Mrs. Cray. Mrs, 
Cray had just gone down in search of 
him.” 

Oswald supposed she alluded to his 
brother’s wife, and made no answer- 
ing comment. As he stood with 
Sara’s hand in his in greeting, he 
noted how pale she was : for the 
startling communication of Mrs. Benn 
had scared the blood from her face, 
and the faint pink was fading again. 
It was somewhat singular that this 
was the first time they had been alone 
together since that memorable day of 
meeting in the Temple Gardens : they 
had met once or twice casually at 
Mark’s in a full room, but not other- 
wise. 

“ Have you been well ?” he asked. 
“ You are not looking very strong.” 


OSWALD CRAY. 


Oh quite well, thank you.’^ 

Oswald hastened to ask a question 
that had long been on his mind. One 
that had troubled him perhaps more 
than he cared to acknowledge to him- 
self : but he had not felt justified in 
seeking a special occasion to put it. 

^^Now that I have the opportunity, 
will you forgive me if I ask whether 
that unpleasant matter is settled that 
caused your visits to Essex Street ? 
I still think you would have done 
wisely to confide it to me.’^ 

It is quite settled,^’ answered 
Sara, her tone full of satisfaction. 

Settled and done with.” Ah, poor 
thing, she forgot momentarily as she 
spoke the fresh grievance opened 
that morning, which was perhaps 
connected with it. 

I am glad of it,” he heartily said. 

I should not like to have gone away 
for an indefinite period knowing that 
you were in any dilemma, and no one 
perhaps to see you out of it. Friend- 
ship may still exist between us tacit- 
ly, if not yet actively,” he continued 
in a low earnest tone. Nothing else 
is left to us.” 

She thought he alluded to his mar- 
riage. She stood something like a 
statue, feeling cruelly wronged, but 
loving him beyond every thing in life 
Not wronged by him : it was fate 
that wronged her : he would have 
loved -her still, had he dared, and she 
felt that he honored her in all tender- 
ness. She felt — and the hot crimson 
came dyeing her face at the thought 
— that he loved her better than that 
other one. 

The rebellious tears welled up to 
her eyes, and she turned her face 
away. “Are you going to be absent 
long ?” she asked, trying to speak in- 
differently. 

“I think so. How long I cannot 
tell yet. I am going to Spain.” 

There was a pause of silence. Sara 
with an air of unconcern began put- 
ting straight the crape folds on her 
dress skirt. Oswald turned to the 
door. 

Where can Caroline be ?” he ex- 


279 

claimed. “ Did you say she had gone 
down in search of me ?” 

“Not Caroline. It is not Caroline. 
It is Mrs. Cray, Markus mother. I 
came out with her to show her the 
way to different places, but I did not 
know she was going to bring me 
here.” 

“ Mark’s mother !” But ere Os- 
wald could say more Mrs. Cray ap- 
peared. She had found her way into 
Mr. Street’s room, down-stairs, think- 
ing it might be Oswald’s, and had 
remained making acquaintance with 
that gentleman. Oswald Cray the' 
rising engineer, and Oswald Cray the 
interloping little son in her husband’s 
home, were essentially two people in 
the worldly mind of Mrs. Cray. 

♦— 

CHAPTER XLI. 

AN UNWELCOME VISITOR. 

Mark Cray and his wife were at- 
tiring themselves by gas-light for 
some scene of evening gayety. The. 
past fortnight — for that period had 
elapsed since the arrival of Mrs. Cray 
in London — had brought nothing else 
but gayety. Shopping in the morn- 
ing, drives in the afternoon, whitebait 
dinners at Blackwall or Greenwich, 
dinners at Richmond, theatres in the 
evening, receptions at home, parties 
out; noise, bustle, whirl, and cost. 
Caroline loved the life ; were it taken 
from her, she said randomly to Mrs. 
Cray one day, she could not survive ; 
she should die of ennui; and the 
Miss Crays had never been so happy 
in their lives, or their mother either. 

Their visit had come to an end 
now, and they had left for home that 
morning. Unwillingly, it is true, but 
Mrs. Cray had deemed it wise not to 
wear out their welcome. They were 
a large party ; and she privately 
contemplated a longer visit in the 
spring, during, the glories of the Lon- 
don season. Mark had treated them 


280 


OSWALD CRAY. 


right regally, and had contrived to 
screw out from some impossible pocket 
a twenty-pound note, which he put 
into his mother’s hands for the jour- 
ney. I shall be able to allow you 
and the girls something worth having 
next year, when the ore’s in the mar- 
ket regularly,” he said to her. Alto- 
gether, Mrs. Oray was well satisfied 
with her impromptu visit. 

** 1 say, Carine,” cried Mark, com- 
ing forth from his dressing-room, 
“ what’s done with my diamond 
studs ?” 

** Where’s the use of asking me ?” 
was Carine’s answer, who was turn- 
ing herself slowly round before the 
large glass to contemplate the effect 
of a new dress which her maid had 
just finished fixing upon her. You 
must make haste, Mark, or we shall 
be late. The dinner’s at seven, mind ; 
and I know it does not want above a 
quarter. ” 

^‘We shall get there in five min- 
utes,” carelessly answered Mark. I 
can’t find my diamond studs.” 

“ I think they are in your dressing- 
case, sir,” spoke up the maid. ** I 
saw them there a day or two ago.” 

Mark went back ; perhaps he had 
overlooked them ? And he found he 
had. He finished dressing himself, 
all but the coat, and came in to his 
wife’s room again. 

Carry, isn’t it old what’s-his- 
name’s affair to-night in Kensington 
Gardens ? We promised to go, didn’t 
we ?” 

'' Of course we did, Mark. . I in- 
tend to go,, too. He says it will be a 
charming party in spite of the world 
being out of town. We shall get 
away from the dinner by ten o’clock, 
I dare say. Shall I do f” 

She was turning herself round before 
the glass as before. Between the two 
glasses in fact, one in front, one 
behind. Her dress was some beauti- 
ful fabric, white and mauve : her violet 
eyes and her glowing cheeks spoke all 
too plainly of her besetting vanity. 
Certainly if vanity is ever pardonable, 
it was in Caroline Cray as she stood 


there, so radiant in her youth and 
beauty. 

Oh, you’ll do,” returned Mark, 

• with scant gallantry, but his white 
necktie had been refractory, and he 
was beginning to resettle it again. At 
that moment he heard a knock at his 
dressing-room door. 

Who’s there ? Come in,” he called 
out, stepping into his own room. 

One of the men-servants entered 
and presented a card to him. Mark, 
whose hands were busy with his neck- 
tie, bent his head to read it as it lay 
on the silver waiter. “ Mr. Bracken- 
bury.” 

^^Mr. Brackenbury [’’repeated Mark 
to himself. '' Who on earth’s Mr. 
Brackenbury ? I can’t see anybody 
now,” he said to the servant. Tell 
him so. I am just going out.” 

I told the gentleman you were on 
the point of going out with my mis- 
tress, sir, that the carriage was wait- 
ing at the door; but he insisted on 
coming in, and said you would be sure 
to see him.” 

Who is it ?” cried Caroline, step- 
ping forward. 

Some Mr. Brackenbury I Don’t 
know him from Adam. Go down, 
George, and say that I can not see 
him ; or any one else, this evening.” 

‘‘The idea of strangers intruding 
at this hour I” exclaimed Caroline. 
“ Mark, I dare say it’s somebody come 
to worry you to get them shares in the 
mine.” 

Mark made no reply. He was in 
enough “ worry” just then over his 
necktie. “Bother the thing I” he 
cried, and pulled it off entirely with a 
jerk. 

The servant came back again. He 
bore another card, a few lines added 
to it in pencil. 

“ I must and will see you. Denial 
is useless.” 

Mark Cray read the words twice 
over, and decided to go down. They 
almost seemed to imply a threat, and 
he did not understand threats. Mr. 
Brackenbury had arrived in a Hansom 
cab, the horse reeking with the speed 


OSWALD CHAT. 


it had made ; but Mark did not know 
that yet. 

''I won’t be a minute, Caroline. 
The fellow insists on seeing me. I’ll 
just see what he wants.” 

Tying on a black necktie tempor- 
arily — the one he had taken off — and 
putting on his morning coat as he de- 
scended the stairs, Mark entered the 
room where the visitor was waiting. 
And then the mystery was solved of 
who Mr. Brackeiibury was, for Mark 
recognized him as a gentleman who 
had recently purchased a few shares 
in the mine. Amidst the many, many 
shareholders, it was not surprising 
that Mark had forgotten the name of 
one of them. In point of fact, these 
few shares had been Mark’s own. 
Being excessively pressed for ready 
money, he had ordered his broker to 
sell them out. 

Oh, Mr. Brackenbury !” said Mark, 
shaking hands with him in a cordial 
manner. Do you know, your name 
had entirely escaped, my memory. I 
have not a moment to spare for you 
to-night. I am going out with my 
wife to dinner.” 

‘'Mr. Cray,” said the visitor, a 
middle-aged, solemn-looking man, 
“ you must return me my two hun- 
dred pounds. I have come for it.” 

“ Return you your two hundred 
pounds !” echoed Mark. ^ “ My good 
sir, I don’t understand you. What 
two hundred pounds ?” 

“ The two hundred pounds I paid for 
those shares. They were transferred 
from your name to mine, therefore I 
know they were your own.” 

“ They were my own,” said Mark. 
“ What of that ?” 

“ Well, I must have the money re- 
turned to me, and you can receive 
back the shares. I have brought them 
in my pocket. I am a determined 
man, sir, and I will have it returned.” 

Mark flew into a rage. He was a 
great man now, and great men do not 
take such words with impunity. “You 
can have your money back to-mor- 
row,” he said, with haughty contempt. 
“ Take the shares to my broker — if 
you don’t possess one of your own — 


281 

and he will repurchase them of 
you.” 

“ Ah,” said Mr. Brackenbury. “ But 
I want the money from you to-night. ' 
I want it now.” 

“ Then you can’t have it,” returned 
Mark. 

Mr. Brackenbury advanced — both 
of them were standing — and laid his 
finger on Mark’s arm. “ Mr. Cray, I 
have not come to you as an enemy ; I 
don’t want to be one, and there’s no oc- 
casion for unpleasantness between us. 
I want my money back, and I must 
have it — I must have it, understand, 
and to-night. After that. I’ll hold 
my tongue as long as it will serve 
you. ” 

Was the man talking Greek ? was 
he out of his mind ? What did it 
mean ? Mark’s indignation began to 
lose itself in puzzled curiosity. 

“ I have had a private telegram to- 
night from the mine,” resumed Mr. 
Brackenbury dropping his voice to a 
cautious whisper. “ Something is 
amiss with it. I jumped into a Han- 
som ” 

“ Something amiss with it ?” inter- 
rupted Mark, cutting short the ex- 
planation, and his tone insensibly 
changing to one of dread ; for that 
past summer’s night, which had 
brought the telegram to Mr. Barker, 
recurred vividly to his mind. “Is it 
water ?” he breathed. 

Mr. Brackenbury nodded. “ An 
irruption of water. I fear— you’ll 
see, of course — but I fear the mine 
and its prosperity are at an end. 
Now, Mr. Cray, you repay me my 
money, and I’ll hold my tongue. If 
this does not get about — and it shall 
not through me — you will have time 
to negotiate some of your shares in 
the market to-morrow morning, and 
put something in your pocket before 
the disaster gets wind. I only want 
to secure myself. Trifling as the 
sum of two hundred pounds may 
seem to you, its loss to me would be 
utter ruin.” 

Mark felt bewildered. “ And if I 
do not give you the two hundred 
pounds to-night ? What then?” 


282 


OSWALD CRAY. 


“ Then I go out with the dawn of 
morning, and publish the failure of 
the mine to the city. I’ll publish it 
to-night. But you’ll not drive me to 
that, Mr. Cray. I don’t want to harm 
you ; I have said it ; but my money 
I must have. It would not be pleas- 
ant for me to proclaim that there has 
already been one irruption of water 
into the mine, which you and Barker 
kept secret. I happen to know so 
much ; and that the shares were sold 
to me after it, as I dare say shares 
have been sold to others. Perhaps 
the public might look on that as a 
sort of fraud. I do ; for I consider a 
mine is never safe, once the water has 
been in it.” 

Mark paused. It is strange that 
news of this should have come to you 
to-night and not to me.” 

Not at all,” said Mr. Bracken- 
bury. I am having the mine watched. 
It’s only lately that I heard about that 
first irruption of water : I did not like 
it ; and as I happen to have a friend 
down there, I got him to be on the 
look-out.” 

Is it any one connected with the 
mine ?” asked Mark, sharply. 

Yes, it is ; no one else could do 
it. But that’s of no consequence. I 
had a telegram from him to-night — ” 

Will you let me see it ?” inter- 
rupted Mark. ' 

‘‘I did not bring it with me. It 
told me that the water was flowing 
into the mine : flowing^ mind ; and it 
added these words, ^ Not known here 
yet.’ I infer, therefore, that the men 
had left the mine for the night, that 
the mischief will not be generally 
known there until the morning, and 
consequently cannot be known here. 
You will have time to save some- 
thing.” 

Mark felt as if water were flowing 
over him. He stood there under the 
gas-burner — the servant had only 
lighted one — a picture of perplexity, 
his face blank, his hand running rest- 
lessly through his hair, after his old 
restless manner, the diamond studs in 
his shirt sparkling and gleaming. All 
this sounded as though some treason. 


some treachery, were at work. If 
this man could get news up, he and 
Barker ought to have got it. 

A knock at the door. It opened 
about an inch, and Caroline’s voice 
was heard. 

Mark, we mu^t go. We are keep- 
ing the dinner waiting.” And Mark 
was turning towards her, when Mr. 
Brackenbury silently caught him by 
the arm, and spoke in a whisper. 

''No I Not until you have given 
me my money.” 

" Allow me to say a word to my 
wife,” said Mark, haughtily. " I will 
return to you in an instant.” 

Caroline stood there with question- 
ing eyes and a rebellions face. Mark 
shut the door while he spoke to her. 

" You must go on alone, my dear. 
I can’t come yet. I’ll join you, later 
in the evening.” 

" Mark ! What’s that for ?” 

" Hush ! This gentleman has come 
up on business from the city, and I 
must attend to him,” whispered Mark. 
" I’ll get rid of him as soon as I can.” 

He was hurrying her out to the 
carriage as he spoke, and he placed 
her in it, she yielding to his strong 
will in her bewilderment. Once seated 
in it, then she spoke. 

" But, Mark, why should he come 
on business now ? What is the busi- 
ness ?” 

" Oh, it h'as to do with the Great 
Wheal Bang,” said Mark, carelessly. 
" It’s all right : only I can’t get away 
just at the minute. I won’t be long. 
They are not to wait dinner, mind.” 

The carriage drove away, and Mark 
returned indoors. His unwelcome vis- 
itor stood in the same place, appar- 
ently not having stirred hand or foot. 

" How am I to know whether this 
news you have brought is true ?” 
was Mark’s first question. And Mr. 
Brackenbury looked at him for a min- 
ute before replying to it. 

" I don’t altogether take you, Mr. 
Cray. You cannot think I should 
knowingly bring you a false report ; 
my character is too well respected in 
the city for you to fear that : and you 
may rely upon it, unhappily, that 


OSWALD CRAY. 


283 


there^s no mistake in the tidings for- 
warded to me.” 

Well — allowing that it shall prove 
to be true — why can^t you take your 
shares into the market and realize to- 
morrow morning, as well as coming 
to me for the money to-night. ” 

‘‘Because I am not sure that I 
could realize !” was the frank response. 
“ I don^t suppose the intelligence will 
be public by that time ; I don^t think 
it will : but I cannot answer for it 
that it won’t. You must give me the 
money, Mr. Cray.” 

Mark took an instant’s gloomy coun- 
sel with himself. Might he dare to 
defy this man, and refuse his demands ? 
He feared not. Mark was no more 
scrupulous than are some other share- 
holders we have read of, and the 
chance of realizing something in the 
morning to pit against the utter ruin 
that seemed to be impending, was not 
to be forfeited rashly. But how was 
he to pay the money ? He had not 
two hundred shillings in the house, 
let alone two hundred pounds. 

“ I can’t give it you to-night,” said 
Mark. “ I have not got it to give.” 

“ I must and will have it,” was the 
resolute answer. “ I dare say you can 
go out and get it somewhere : fifty 
people would be glad to lend you 
money. I shall stay here until I have 
it. And if you deem me scant of 
courtesy to-night, Mr. Cray, you may 
set it down to the sore feeling in my 
mind at the circumstances under which 
the shares were sold to me. I’d never 
have touched them had I suspected 
water had been already in the mine.” 

“ That’s talking nonsense 1” said 
Mark, in his irritation. “ The mine 
was as sound and as safe after the 
water had been in it, as it was before. 
It was nothing more than a threaten- 
ing ; mothing to hurt.” 

“ A threatening : just so. Well, it 
is of no use to waste time squabbling 
over terms now. That will do no 
good.” 

Mr. Brackenbury was right. It cer- 
tainly would do no good. Mark went 
out, leaving him there, for he refused 
to stir, and, not seeing a cab, ran full 


speed to Mr. Barker’s lodging in Pic- 
cadilly. A Hansom could not have 
gone quicker. It was not that he 
hoped Mr. Barker could supply the 
two hundred pounds, that gentleman 
was as short of ready cash as himself ; 
but Mark was burning with impa- 
tience to impart the disastrous news, 
and to hear whether Barker had had 
intelligence of it. 

Disappointment. When Mark, pant- 
ing, breathless, excited, seized the bell 
at Mr. Barker’s house and rang a peal 
that frightened the street, he was told 
that Mr. Barker was not within. He 
had gone out in the afternoon : the 
servant did not know where. 

“Has any telegram come up from 
Wales to-night ?” gasped Mark. 

“ Telegram, sir ? No, sir ; nothing 
at all has come to-night, neither let- 
ter nor any thing.” 

“ I’ll be back in a short while,” 
said Mark. “ If Mr. Barker returns, 
tell him to wait in for me. It is of 
the very utmost importance that I 
should see him.” 

He turned away, jumped into a 
cab that was passing, and ordered it 
to drive to Parliament Street. The 
two hundred pounds he must get 
somehow, and he knew nobody he 
could apply to at the pinch, save 
Oswald. 

Mark was not the only visitor to 
Oswald Cray that night. He was 
sitting alone, after his dinner, very 
deep in deliberation, when Benn came 
up showing in a gentleman. It proved 
to be Henry Oswald. 

They had not met since the funeral 
of Lady Oswald twelve months be- 
fore, and at the first moment Oswald 
scarcely knew him. Henry Oswald 
was a cordial-mannered man. He 
had not inherited the cold heart and 
the haughty bearing so characteristic 
of the Oswalds of Thorndyke ; and he 
grasped Oswald’s hand warmly. 

“ I have been out of England nearly 
ever since we met, Oswald — I’m sure 
you will let me call you so, we are 
near relatives — or I should have 
sought to improve the acquaintance 
begun at that short meeting. I want 


284 


OSWALD CRAY. 


you to be friendly with me : I know 
bow wrong has been the estrangement 
and what cause you have to hate us ; 
but surely you and I can afford to do 
away with the prejudice that has kept 
yon from Thorndyke, and Thorndyke 
from you.” 

Oswald saw how genuine were the 
words, how earnest the wish imparted 
in them ; and from that moment- his 
** prejudice ” went out of him, as far 
as Henry Oswald was concerned, and 
his eye lighted up with an earnest of 
the future friendship. He had liked 
Henry Oswald at that first meeting ; 
he liked him still. 

They sat together, talking of the 
days gone by, when they were uncon- 
scious children. Of Oswald’s mother ; 
of the conduct of her family towards 
her ; of the insensate folly — it was 
his son called it so — that still estranged 
Sir Philip from Oswald Cray : they 
talked freely and fully as though they 
had been intimate for years, far more 
confidentially than Oswald had ever 
talked to his half-brother. 

'' I shall be proud of your friend- 
ship, Oswald,” cried the young man, 
warmly, “if that’s not an ominous 
word for one of us. But I fancy you 
inherit the family failing far more 
than I. You will be one of the 
world’s great men yet, making your- 
self a name that the best might 
envy.” 

Oswald laughed. “If the world 
envies those who work hard, then it 
may envy me.” 

“ I can tell you what, Oswald. If 
work’s not envied in these days, it is 
honored. In the old days of darkness 
— I’m sure I can call them so in com- 
parison with these — it was such as I 
who were envied. The man born 
with a silver spoon in his mouth, who 
need do nothing his whole life long 
but sit down in idleness and enjoy 
his title and fortune, and be clothed 
in purple and fine linen and fare 
sumptuously every day ; — he got the 
honor then. Now the man of industry 
and talent is bowed down to, he who 
labors onwards and upwards to use 
and improve the good gifts bestowed 


upon him by God. It may be wrong 
to say it, but I do say it in all sin- 
cerity, that I, Henry Oswald, born to 
my baronetcy, envy you, Oswald 
Cray, born to work.” 

From one subject they went to 
another. In talking of the Cray 
family, they spoke of Mark, and from 
Mark the transition to the Great 
Wheal Bang Company was easy. 
Henry Oswald had heard and read of 
its promise, and he now asked Os- 
wald’s opinion of its stability. He 
had a few hundreds to spare, for he 
had not been an extravagant man, 
and felt inclined to embark them in 
the Great Wheal Bang. Oswald 
advised his doing so. He himself 
had embarked all his saved cash in it, 
a thousand pounds, and he thought 
he had done well. 

“ Then I’ll see about it to-morrow,” 
decided Henry Oswald ; “ and get it 
completed before I go down to Thorn- 
dyke.’^ 

He departed soon, for he was en- 
gaged out that evening, and Oswald 
resumed the train of thought which 
bis entrance had interrupted. The 
deliberation, it may be said. He was 
pondering a grave question : should 
he not despatch Frank Allister to 
Spain in place of himself? Allister 
was equally capable ; and two or 
three years’ residence in that climate 
might renovate him for life. It 
would be a great sacrifice for him, 
Oswald ; a sacrifice, in some degree, 
of name and fame and pecuniary 
benefit; but he was a conscientious 
man, very different from the generality 
of business men, who seek their own 
elevation, no matter who is left be- 
hind. Oswald as a child had learnt 
the good wholesome doctrine .of doing 
to others as we would be done by : 
and he carried it out practically in 
life, content to leave the issue with 
God. How many of us can say as 
much ? 

A few minutes’ earnest thought, and 
he raised his head with a clear coun- 
tenance. The decision was made. 

“Allister shall go,” he said, half 
aloud. “ Should he get ill again in 


OSWALD CRAY. 


this wretched climate next winter and 
die, I should have it on my conscience 
forever. It will be a sacrifice for me ; 
but how can I put my advancement 
against his life ? I ought not, and I 
will not.” 

The words had scarcely left his lips 
when Mark came in. Not Mark as 
we saw him just now, troubled, eager, 
panting; but Mark all coolness and 
smiles. A little hurried, perhaps ; but 
that was nothing. 

He had come to ask Oswald a favor. 
Would he accommodate him with a 
cheque for two hundred pounds until 
the banks opened in the morning ? A 
gentleman to whom was owing that 
sum on account of the Great Wheal 
Bang, had urgent need of it that very 
night, and had come bothering him, 
Mark, for it. If Oswald would ac- 
commodate him, he, Mark, should feel 
very much obliged, and would return 
it in the morning with many thanks. 

‘‘I have not got as much of my 
own,” said Oswald. 

** But you can give me a cheque of 
the firm^s, can^t you ?” returned Mark, 
playing carelessly with his diamond 
studs. 

Oswald did not much like this sug- 
gestion, and hesitated. Mark spoke 
again. 

It will be rendering me the great- 
est possible service, Oswald. The 
fellow has to leave town, or something, 
by one of the night trains. You shall 
have it back the first thing in the 
morning. ” 

^‘You are sure that I shall, 
Mark ?” 

Sure !” echoed Mark, opening his 
small gray eyes very wide in surprise. 
“ Of course I am sure. Do you think 
I should forget to bring it you ? Let 
me have it at once, there’s a good 
brother. Carine will think I am never 
coming ; we have to go to two parties 
to-night.” 

Oswald wrote the cheque and gave 
it him. It was a cheque of the firm : 

Bracknell, Street, and Oswald 
Cray,” for Oswald’s name appeared 
now. 

And Mr. Mark carried it off with 


285 

him. “ There’s a good brother,” in- 
deed 1 I wonder how he slept that 
night 1 


CHAPTER XLII. 

COMMOTION. 

With the wing of the dawn — ^that 
is, with the wing of the dawn for busi- 
ness in London — Mark Cray was at 
the offices in the City. Barker was 
there before him, and started forward 
to meet him as he entered. Mark had 
not succeeded in seeing Barker the 
previous night. 

‘‘ Cray, it’s all up. I’m afraid it’s 
all up.” 

** Have you heard from Wales ?” 

‘‘I got a telegram this morning. 
There’s an irruption of water, in ear- 
nest this time. It’s flowing in like so 
many pumps. Look here.” 

Mark’s hands shook as he laid hold 
of the telegram. I wasn’t in bed till 
three o’clock,” said he, as if he would 
give an excuse for the signs of agita- 
tion. But though he tried to account 
for his shaking hands, he could not for 
his scared face. 

Yes, Mr. Barker was no doubt right, 
it was “ all up” with the Great Wheal 
Bang. Mark and he stood alone over 
the table in the board room : in con- 
sultation as to what they could do, and 
what they might do. 

Might they dare — allowing that the 
public still reposed in happy security — 
to take some shares into the market 
and secure themselves something out 
of the wreck ? Barker was all for 
doing it ; at any rate for trying it — 
‘‘whether it would work,” he said. 
Mark hung back in indecision ; he 
thought there might be after-conse- 
quences. He told Barker the episode 
of Mr. Brackenbury’s visit, and of his 
satisfying that gentleman with the 
cheque of Bracknell, Street, and Os- 
wald Cray, which cheque was no 
doubt cashed by this time. 

“ Mean old idiot 1” apostrophized 
Mr. Barker. “ That’s always the way 


286 


OSWALD CRAY. 


with those petty people. Theyll make 
more fuss over their paltry hundred 
pounds or two than others do over 
thousands. I^d not have paid him, 
Mark.’’ 

couldn’t help it,” said Mark. 

You should have seen the work he 
made. Besides, if I had not, he’d 
have proclaimed the thing from one 
end of London to another.” 

“Well, about these shares,” said 
Barker. “We must make as much as 
ever we can. Will you go, or shall I ?” 

“ Perhaps it’s known already,” re- 
turned Mark, dubiously. 

“ Perhaps it isn’t. Brackenbury 
gave you his word that he’d keep quiet, 
and who else is likely to know it ? 
Letters canH get here till the after- 
noon post, and nobody at the mine 
would make it their business to tele- 
graph up.” 

Mark stood in restless indecision. 
When annoyed, he was fidgety to a 
degree — could not be still. Perhaps 
he had inherited his mother’s tempera- 
ment. He pushed back his hair in- 
cessantly ; he fingered nervously the 
diamond studs in his shirt. Mark was 
not in the habit of wearing those studs 
by day, or the curiously-fine embroid- 
ery they were adorning. Whether, in 
his confusion of faculties, he had put 
in the studs that morning, or had ab- 
sently retired to rest in his shirt the 
previous night, studs and all,*must be 
left to conjecture. 

“ Look here, Barker,” said he, “if 
news had not come to us of the dis- 
aster, to you and to me, I’d willingly 
have taken every share we possess 
into the market, and got the money for 
them, if I could. But the news has 
come : and I don’t think it would do.” 

“ Who’s to know it has come ?” 
asked Barker. 

Well — things do often come out, 
you know ; they nearly always do : 
especially if they are not wanted to. 
Perhaps the telegraph office could be 
brought up to prove it, or something 
of that.” 

“ Well ?” said Barker. 

“Well,” repeated Mark. “It 
mightn’t do.” 


“ Oh, bother, Cray ! We must do 
it. We must stand out through thick 
and thin afterwards that the message 
never reached us. I could ; and you 
are safe, for you have not had one at 
all. Look at our position. We must 
realize. Of course we can’t attempt 
to negotiate many shares ; that would 
betray us ; but a few we might, and 
must. We must, for our own sakes : 
we can’t stand naked without a penny 
to fall back upon.” 

Mark still hesitated. “ I’d have 
done it with all the pleasure in life, 
but for this telegram,” he reiterated. 
“ For one thing, Oswald would never 
forgive me ; my name’s the same as 
his, you know ; and I shall have to 
face him over this two hundred 
pounds : that will be bad enough. 
And there’s my mother. And my 
wife. Barker ; you forget her.” 

“ I don’t forget her. I am thinking 
of her,” was Mr. Barker’s answer. 
“ It’s for her sake, as much as ours, 
that you ought to secure a little ready 
money. You’ll want it. I know 
that much, for I have been down in 
luck before.” 

Mark looked irresolute, and pitia- 
bly gloomy. “I don’t see my way 
clear,” he resumed, after a pause. 
“ Let’s put the thing into plain black 
and white. I go out, and sell some 
shares, and get the money paid down 
for them, and pocket it. An hour 
afterwards the news spreads that the 
mine’s destroyed, and the shares are 
consequently worthless. Well, Bar- 
ker, my belief is, that they could pro- 
ceed against me criminally for dispos- 
ing of those shares ” 

“ Not if you did not know the mine 
was wrong when you took them into 
the market. ” 

“Nonsense,” returned Mark, irrita- 
bly, “ they’d be sure to know it. I 
tell you it would be safe to come out 
by hook or by crook. They’d call it 
felony, or swindling, or some such 
ugly name. And — Barker” — he con- 
tinued, lowering his voice — “some- 
thing with an uglier name still might 
follow it — transportation. Do you 
suppose I am going to put my bead 


OSWALD CRAY. 


287 


into that noose ? I was born a gen- 
tleman.” 

'^And do you suppose I wish either 
of us to do it retorted Barker. I 
shouldn’t be such a fool. I never go 
into a thing unless I know I can fight 
my way out of it. I shall take a few 
shares into the market, and feel my 
way. I shall sell them for money, if 
I can ; and you shall share it, Mark. 
I suppose you won’t object to that.” 

No, certainly, Mark would have no 
objection to that. 

I did not hear of the disaster until 
later, you know,” said Barker, wink- 
ing. News of it came up to us by 
the afternoon post. If they do find 
out about the telegram, why, I never 
opened it. Nobody saw me open it,” 
added Barker, with satisfaction. I 
have had so many up from the mine 
that the clerks put them into my sit- 
ting-room now as a matter of course. 
This one was put there this morning, 
and I found it when I came down, 
but nobody was in the room. Oh, it 
will be all right. And I say, Mark, 
if ” 

Mr. Barker’s smooth projects were 
stopped. Absorbed in their conver- 
sation, he and Mark had alike failed 
to notice a gradually gathering hum 
in the street outside. A very gentle, 
almost imperceptible hum at first, but 
increasing to a commotion now. 
With one bound they reached the 
window. 

A concourse of people, their num- 
bers being augmented every moment, 
had assembled beneath. They were 
waiting for the opening of the offices 
of the Great Wheal Bang at ten o’clock. 
And the hour was almost on the point 
of striking. 

It’s all up,” shouted Barker in 
Mark’s ear. The news is abroad 
and they have beard of it. Look at 
their faces !” 

The faces were worth looking at, 
though not as a pleasant sight. An- 
ger, rage, disappointment, above all, 
impatience y were depicted there. The 
impatience of a wolf waiting to spring 
upon its prey. One of the faces un- 
luckily turned its gaze upwards, and 


caught sight of Barker’s. Barker saw 
it ; he had not been quick enough in 
drawing his away from the window. 

They’ll not be keptoutnow, doors 
or no doors,” said he quietly to 
Mark. 

Mr. Barker was right. Ere the 
words had died away upon his lips, a 
sound as if the walls of the house were 
being beaten in, ensued. The bells 
commenced a perpetual peal, the 
knocker knocked incessantly, the doors 
were pushed and kicked and thumped. 
In the midst of it rose the sound of 
human voices in a roar : disjointed 
words distinguishable amidst the tu- 
mult. ‘‘Let us in! Come out to 
us I” 

Mr. Barker advanced to the stairs 
and leaned over the balustrades. 
“ Williams,” he called out to an at- 
tendant official below, “ you can open 
the doors. The gentlemen may come 
up.” 

It was curious to note the difference 
in the two men. Barker was as cool 
as a cucumber; self-possessed as ever 
he had been in his life ; ready to make 
the best of every thing, and quite equal 
to the emergency. Mark Cray, on 
the contrary, seemed to have parted 
alike with his wits and his nerves. 
Not more completely did he lose his 
presence of mind in that long past 
evening which had been so fatal to 
Lady Oswald. His hands shook as 
with terror ; his face was white as 
death. 

“ Will they pull us to pieces, Bar- 
ker ?” 

“ Pooh,” said Barker, with a laugh 
at the evident tremor. “ What has 
taken you, Mark ? Let them rave on 
a bit without answering, and they’ll 
calm down. Put that in your pocket, ” 
he continued. “ It will be a trifle to 
fall back upon.” 

He had touched the diamond ring 
that glittered on Mark Cray’s finger. 
Mark obeyed like a child. He took 
it from his finger and thrust it into 
his waistcoat pocket ; next he but- 
toned his coat, some vague feeling per- 
haps prompting him to hide the studs ; 
but he did it all mechanically, as one 


288 


OSWALD CRAY. 


not conscious of his actions. Terror 
was holding its sway over him. 

Why should they be excited 
against us ? Heaven knows we have 
not intentionally wronged them.^’ 

“That’s just the question I shall 
ask them myself when they are cool 
enough to listen to it,” rejoined Bar- 
ker, with a gay air. “Now then 
comes the tug of war.” 

In they came, thick and threefold, 
dashing up the stairs and pouring 
into the room like so many bees. 
And then it was found that Mark’s 
apprehensions had been somewhat 
premature. For these shareholders 
had come flowing to the office not so 
much to abuse the projectors of the 
company, as to inquire the true par- 
ticulars of the disaster. The news 
had gone forth in a whisper — and to 
this hour neither Mark nor Barker 
knows how, or through whom, it had 
oozed out — but that whisper was 
vague and uncertain. N aturally those 
interested flew to the offices for better 
information. Was the damage of 
great extent ? — and would the mine 
and the company stand it ? 

Barker was of course all suavity. 
He treated the matter more as a joke 
than any thing else, making light of 
it altogether. An irruption of water ? 
well, perhaps a little drop had got in, 
but they must wait for the afternoon’s 
post. It would be all right. 

He looked round for Mark, hoping 
that gentleman’s face would not 
arouse suspicion ; but he could not 
see him. Mark, as Barker learned 
afterwards, had contrived to escape 
from the room as the throng entered, 
and got into the street unnoticed, and 
leaped into a cab. Mark was beside 
himself that morning. 

The unfortunate news spread from 
one end of London to the other. It 
was carried to Oswald Cray ; but 
the day was advanced then. “The 
Great Wheal Bang Company had ex- 
ploded, and there was a run upon the 
office.” Oswald was startled; and 
betook himself at once to the premises 
as the rest had done. But on bis way 


he called in upon Henry Oswald, and 
spoke a word of caution. 

“ It may be a false rumor,” said he ; 

“ I hope it is. But don’t do any thing 
in the shares until you know.” 

A false rumor I When Oswald 
reached the offices, he found it all too 
true a one. The secretary to the 
company, without meaning to do ill — 
indeed he had let it out in his lamen- 
tation — had unwittingly disclosed the 
fact of the previous irruption of water 
in the summer : and the excited crowd 
were going wild with anger. Many 
of them had bought their shares at a 
period subsequent to that. 

Oswald heard this, and went to Mr. 
Barker in the board-room. That gen- 
tleman, rather heated certainly, but 
with unchanged suavity of demeanor, 
was still doing his best to reassure 
everybody. Oswald drew him aside. 

“ What a dreadful thing this is ! 
What is the real truth of it ?” 

“ Hush !” interrupted Mr. Barker. 
“No need to tell the worst to them. 
You are one of us. I’m afraid it is 
all up with the mine ; but we will keep 
it from them as long as we can. Any 
way, it’s no fault of ours.” 

“ What is that they are saying 
about an irruption of water having 
occurred in the summer ?” 

“ Well, so it did,” answered Mr. 
Barker, whose past few hours’ tem- 
porizing with the crowd caused him 
perhaps to throw olf reserve to Mr. 
Oswald Cray as a welcome relief. 
“ But it wasn’t much, that ; and we 
succeeded in keeping it dark.” 

“ Did Mark know of it ?” 

“Mark know of it I” rejoined Bar- 
ker : “ of course he knew of it. What 
should hinder him ? Why, the tele- 
gram bringing the news was given 
me at Mark’s house ; and, by the way, 
you were present, I remember. It 
was the evening that old doctor in the 
yellow trousers was there, with his 
two frights of daughters.” 

The scene rose as in a mirror be- 
fore Oswald’s memory. Dr. Ford and 
his daughters. Miss Davenal and Sara, 
Caroline Cray in her satins and her 


OSWALD CRAY. 


beauty. He remembered the tele- 
gram, he remembered that it appeared 
to disturb both Barker and Mark ; 
and he remembered Mark’s denial to 
him that any thing was amiss with 
the mine. 

I do recollect it,” he said aloud. 

It struck me — perhaps it was rather 
singular it should do so — that some- 
thing was wrong. Mark declared to 
me that it was not so.” 

The words seemed to tickle Barker 
uncommonly. 

‘‘Ah,” said he, laughing, “Mark 
told me of it, and how he turned you 
off the scent. You’d not have put 
your thousand into it, perhaps, had 
you known of the water.” 

“ Perhaps not,” quietly replied Os- 
wald. “And my thousand was wanted, 
I suppose.” 

“ Law I you don’t know the money 
that’s been wanted,” was the response. 
“ And that irruption of water, slight 
as it was, made the demand for it 
worse. The mine has sucked it in 
like a sponge.” 

Oswald made no answering remark. 
“ I suppose this irruption is worse 
than that ?” he presently observed. 

“ Indeed I fear this is another thing 
altogether — ruin. But we don’t know 
any thing certain until the post comes 
in this afternoon. We have had no 
letter yet.” 

“ How did the news of it come to 
you ?” 

“ By telegram. But the first news 
came to Mark ; in an odd manner, too. 
A curmudgeon of a shareholder, old 
Brackenbury, went up yesterday 
evening to Mark, just as he was going 
out to dinner with his wife, and 
insisted upon his paltry money, 
only two hundred pounds, being re- 
turned to him. He was inclined to 
be nasty ; and if Mark had not sat- 
isfied him, he’d have gone over all 
London proclaiming that the mine 
was overflowing with water. The 
odd thing is, who could have tele- 
graphed the news to him. We must 
have a traitor in the camp. Mark 
told me — oh, ah,” broke off Mr. Bar- 
ker, interrupting himself as recollec- 

18 


289 

tion flashed upon him — “ I think he 
got the two hundred from you.” 

“ And Mark knew the mine was 
then ruined I” returned Oswald, draw- 
ing his lips, but not losing his calm 
equanimity. 

“Brackenbury said it was. He 
didn’t know it otherwise. Bracken- 
bury — Halloa ! what’s that ?” 

It was a shout in the street. A 
shout composed of roars, and hisses, 
and groans. Drawing up to the door 
of the offices was the handsome car- 
riage of Mark Cray ; and the crowd 
had turned their indignation upon it. 

One look, one glimpse of the white 
and terror-stricken faces of its inmates, 
and Oswald Cray bounded down the 
stairs. They were the faces of Mrs. 
Cray and Sara Da venal. 

What could have brought them 
there ? 

♦ 

CHAPTER XLIII. 

DAY-DREAMS RUDELY INTERRUPTED. 

Seated before a costly breakfast 
service of Sevres porcelain with its 
adjuncts of glittering silver, was Caro- 
line Cray, in a charming morning-robe 
of white muslin and blue ribbons, with 
what she would have called a coiffurCy 
all blue ribbons and white lace, on her 
silky hair. A stranger, taking a 
bird’s-eye view of the scene, of the 
elegant room, the expensive acces- 
sories, the recherche attire of its mis- 
tress, would have concluded that there 
was no lack of means, that the income 
supporting all this must be one of at 
least some thousands a-year. 

In truth, Mark Cray and his wife 
were a practical illustration of that 
homely but expressive saying so fa- 
miliar to us all : they hadbegun at the 
wrong end of the ladder. When for- 
tune has come, when it is actually 
realized, then the top of the ladder, 
comprising its Sevres porcelain and 
other costs in accordance, may be safe 
and consistent, but if we begin there 
without first climbing to it, too many 


290 


OSWALD CRAY. 


of US have an inconvenient fashion of 
toppling down again. The furniture 
surrounding Caroline Cray was of the 
most beautiful design, the most costly 
nature ; the lace on that morning robe, 
on that pretty “ coiffure, would make 
a hole in a 20Z. bank note ; the silver 
ornaments on the table were fit for the 
first palace in the land ; and Mr. and 
Mrs. Cray had got these things about 
them — and a great deal more besides 
which I have not time to tell you of — 
' anticipatory of the fortune that was to 
he theirs ; not that already was. And 
now their footing on that high ladder 
was beginning to tremble, just as that 
of the milkmaid did when she sent the 
milk out of her milkpails, and so de- 
stroyed her dreams. 

Caroline sat at her late breakfast, 
toying with a fashionable newspaper 
— that is, one giving notice of the 
doings of the fashionable world — sip- 
ping her coffee, flirting with some 
delicate bits of buttered roll, casting 
frequent glances at the mirror opposite 
to her, in whose polished plate was 
reflected that pretty face, which in her 
pardonable vanity she believed had 
not its compeer. All unconscious was 
she of that turbulent scene then being 
enacted in the city, of the fact that her 
husband was at that moment finding 
his way to her in a cab into which he 
had jumped to hide himself, in abject 
fear and dismay. Caroline had slept 
sound and late after her night’s gayety, 
and very much surprised was she to 
find her husbanu had arisen and was 
gone out without speaking to her. 
She felt cross at it. She wanted to 
ask Mark to explain his strange con- 
duct in not coming to the dinner on the 
previous night, of not making his ap- 
pearance at all, indeed, at what she 
called a decent hour. She had asked 
him about it in the carriage coming 
home, and he said ^‘Nothing much, 
lie had to go to Oswald’s ; he’d tell 
her in the morning.” But when the 
morning came, she found Mark flown. 

The German watering places never 
known to have been so full as they are 
this year I” she remarked, culling a 
choice morsel or two from the news- 


paper at intervals. I’m rather sorry 
we can’t go. Perhaps even now Mark 
might — what hour’s that ?” 

It was the striking of the French 
clock behind her that caused the ex- 
clamation. She turned, and found it 
was eleven : later than Caroline* 
thought, and she finished her break- 
fast quickly and rang the bell. 

While the things were being re- 
moved, she began thinking over her 
plans for the day. Some excursion 
into the country had been spoken of 
for the afternoon ; and, now Mark was 
gone, she was in uncertainty. Mrs. 
Cray tapped her pretty foot in petu- 
lance on the carpet, and felt exceed- 
ingly angry with the tiresome stranger 
who had disturbed her husband when 
he was dressing on the previous even- 
ing, and kept him from going out with 
her to dinner. 

' How long did that gentleman stop 
here last night, George ?” she suddenly 
asked of the servant. “ Mr. — what 
was the name ? Brackenbury, I 
think.” 

‘‘ He stopped a good while, ma’am. 
I think it was between nine and ten 
when he left.” 

“ What a sliame ! Keeping Mr. 
Cray all that while. I wonder he 
stayed with him I I wouldn’t.” 

“ My master was not with him all 
the time, ma’am,” said the man, wish- 
ing to be communicative. “ He went 
out and left the gentleman here wait- 
ing for him : he went out for some 
time. ” 

They are so unreasonable, these 
people !” grumbled Caroline to her- 
self. They don’t go to evening 
amusements themselves, don’t get in- 
vited, I dare say, and they have no 
consideration for others who do. I’d 
make them come to me in business 
hours, if I were Mark.” 

She sat on, after the breakfast 
things were taken away, leaning back 
in an easy-chair and turning carelessly 
the leaves of a new novel, those that 
would open, for she did not exert her- 
self to cut them. A very listless mood 
was she in that morning, tired and out 
of sorts. By and by her maid came 


OSWALD CRAY. 


in to ask about some alteration that 
was to be made in a dress, and Caro- 
line told her to bring the dress to 
her. 

That roused her a little. It was a 
beautiful evening-dress of flowered 
silk, and she stood over the table, 
where the maid laid it, consulting 
with her about some change in the 
color of the trimmings. Becoming 
absorbed in this, she scarcely noticed 
that some one had come into the hall 
and opened the door of the room. 
Some expression in the maid’s counte- 
nance as she looked up, caught her 
attention, and she turned quickly 
round. 

Mark was there, glancing into the 
room. Mark, with a white aspect and 
a scared, dreamy look on his face. 
Before Caroline had time to question, 
in fact almost before she looked, he 
was gone and had closed the door 
again. So quiet had been the move- 
ment, so transient the vision, that 
Caroline spoke in her surprise. 

Was not that your master ?” 

Yes, ma’am. Something was the 
matter, I think. He looked ill.” 

will go and see. Mind, Long, 
I’ll decide upon pink. It is the 
prettiest color.” 

a Yery well, ma’am. As you please, 
of course. Only I think pink won’t 
go so well with the dress as violet.” 

^^I tell you. Long, that violet will 
not light up. You know it won’t, 
without my having to reiterate it to 
you. No color lights up so badly as 
violet. Pink. And let the ruchings 
be very full and handsome.” 

Speaking the last words in a per- 
emptory tone, she went in search of 
Mark. He was standing in the dining- 
room, looking more like a man lost, 
than a man in his senses. 

'' Mark, what’s the matter ?” 

He turned to his wife — he had been 
undecided whether to tell her or not. 
It was a question he was debating 
with himself on his way down : that 
is, it had been floating through his 
mind in a sort of under-current. To 
concentrate his thoughts deliberately 
upon one point sufficiently to decide 


291 

it, was beyond the power of Mark 
Cray, 

Mark’s true disposition was showing 
itself now. Yacillating and unstable 
by nature, utterly deficient in that 
moral courage which meets an evil 
when it comes, and looks it steadily 
in the face to see how it may be best 
dealt with, the blow of that morning 
had taken away what little sense Mark 
possessed. He was as a frightened 
child; aship without a rudder ; he was 
utterly unable to distinguish what his 
proper course ought to be ; he did 
not know where to go or what to do : 
his chief thought was, to run away 
from the torrent that had broken loose. 
He must hide himself from the storm, 
but he could not face it. 

When he jumped into the cab, and 
the driver had said, Where to, sir ?” 
he gave his home address in answ^er, 
simply because he could not think of 
another direction to give in that be- 
wildering moment : so the cab drove 
on. But Mark did not want to go to 
Grosvenor Place. He had nothing to 
get from there ; he had no business 
there, and a feeling came over him 
that he had rather not meet his wife 
just then. He wanted to hide him- 
self and his bewildered mind and his 
scared face in some remote nook, far 
from the haunts of men, where that 
remorseless crowd, just escaped from, 
would not pounce upon him. Mark 
had not given himself time to ascertain 
that their disposition was pacificatory ; 
he was wondering rather whether they 
had yet pulled the offices down. 
Neither Mark Cray nor Caroline w^as 
fitted to encounter the storms of life. 
So long as the sailing was smooth, it 
was well ; but when the waves arose 
rough and turbulent, the one proved 
physically, the other morally, unable 
to breast them. 

Mark stopped the cab as it was 
turning into Grosvenor Place : some 
vague feeling prompting him that it 
might be safer to steal quietly into his 
home than to dash up to it in a cab. 
The tidings perhaps had travelled far 
and wide, and people might be already 
there, as well as at the oflices. Mark 


292 


OSWALD CRAY. 


was half determined to make the best 
of his way at once to the scene of the 
Great Wheal Bang itself, the mine ; 
and see with his own eyes whether 
things were so bad that they could not 
be mended. At least, he should be 
away from his furious enemies in Lon- 
don. One, more under the influence 
of reason than Mark Cray, might have 
thought it well to ascertain whether 
those enemies were so furious, before 
running from them. When a man of 
no moral courage loses his presence 
of mind, he merits pity, perhaps, rather 
than condemnation. 

Mark, what’s the matter 

With her actual presence before 
him, with the pointed question on her 
lips, Mark Cray’s indecision passed 
completely off. He could no more 
have told her the truth at that mo- 
ment, that the golden prospects so 
implicitly believed in had turned to 
ruin, and the offices yonder were being 
besieged with noisy shareholders, than 
he could have told it to the besiegers 
themselves. 

The matter ?” repeated Mark, at 
a loss for any other answer. 

You look as if something were the 
matter, Mark. And what have you 
come back for ?” 

“ Oh, I left some — some papers at 
home,” answered Mark, speaking as 
carelessly as he could. ‘‘ There’s noth- 
ing the matter with me. The fellow 
drove fast, that’s all. I gave him an 
extra sixpence.” 

Perhaps Caroline did not deem this 
communication particularly relevant 
to the subject. What made you go 
away so early, Mark ? she asked. 
‘‘You never settled anything about 
Hendon to-day ?” 

“ Well, I don’t think I can go,” said 
Mark. “ I — I’ll see later. Hark I” 

Mark’s “ hark” was spoken in echo 
to a thundering knock at the door. 
A knock and a ring enough to shake 
the house down. He looked round at 
the walls for a moment as if he wanted 
to make a dash into them ; he stepped 
towards the window, hesitated, and 
drew away again ; finally, ho opened 
the door to escape, but too late, for 


voices were already in the hall. Caro- 
line looked at her husband in wonder- 
ing dismay. ^ 

“ Mark, what has come to you ?” 

“ Hush 1” whispered Mark, the 
perspiration welling up to his fore- 
head, as he bent his head to catch 
the sound from those voices. “ Hark ! ‘ 
hush 1” i 

“ Is Mr. Cray at home ?” 

“No, sir. He went to the City 
early this morning.” 

How Mark Cray blessed bis ser- 
vant for the unconscious mistake, he 
alone could tell. The man had not 
seen his master come in and had no 
idea he was in the house. 

“ Gone to the City, is he ? Are 
you sure ?” 

“ Quite sure, sir.” 

A pause. Mark’s heart was beat- 
ing. 

“ What time will he be home ?” 

“ I don’t know, sir.” 

Another pause. “ I suppose Mr. 
Barker’s not here ?” 

“ Mr. Barker ? Oh dear no, sir.” 

And that was followed by the clos- 
ing of the hall-door. Mark Cray gave 
a great gasp of relief, and went up- 
stairs to his own room. 

He did not stay there above a min- 
ute. Caroline — she remembered it 
afterwards — heard a drawer or two 
opened and shut. She had been fol- 
lowing him, but was momentarily de- 
tained by a question from her maid, 
who was coming out of the breakfast- 
room with the dress upon her arm. 
Caroline stopped while she answered 
it, and in going up the stairs she met 
Mark coming down. 

“ Who was that at the door, Mark ? 
Who did you think it was ?” 

“ I don’t know who it was.” 

“ You seemed alarmed, and an- 
noyed. ” 

“ Well,” returned Mark, speaking 
rather fast, “ and it is annoying to 
have business fellows coming after 
me to my house. Why can’t they go 
to the offices ?” 

“ To be sure,” said Caroline, reas- 
sured. “ I’d not see a soul here, if I 
were you.” 


OSWALD CRAY. 


293 


He had been walking on towards the 
halhdoor while he spoke. But ere he 
had well reached it, he turned and 
drew his wife into one of the rooms. 

Look here, Caroline : I^m not 
.sure but I shall have to go down to 
the mines to-night. If so, it is just 
possible that I may not be able to 
come here first. So you won’t be 
alarmed if you don’t see me home.” 

What a hurry you must be in I” 
exclaimed Caroline. Not come home 
first I” 

But if I do go, mind, it will be on 
a little private matter that I don’t 
want known,” he continued, taking 
no notice of the remark. So if any- 
body should ask where I am, just an- 
swer that you can’t tell, but that I 
shall be back in a day or two. Do 
you understand, Carine ?” 

Quite well. But, Mark, you will 
come home first, won’t you ?” 

I only tell you this in case I don’t 
come,” he said evasively. I have a 
good deal to do to-day. Good-by, 
Carine.” 

^^But about Hendon?” she inter- 
rupted. 

Hendon ? Oh, I am quite sure I 
shan’t have time fbr Hendon to-day. 
If you don’t like to go without me we 
must put it off for a day or two.” 

He stooped to kiss her. Opening 
the hall-door, he stood on the steps, 
looking right and left ; carelessly, as 
it seemed ; in reality, cautiously. 
Yery timorous was Mark Cray in 
that hour : he did not like that people 
should have hunted him to his very 
house. Then he turned to the Yic* 
toria Station, perhaps as the nearest 
point of refuge. He would make 
his way to Wales, to the mine, as 
straightly and speedily as he could, 
consistent with precaution. 

Mark had been gone the best part 
of an hour, and it was hard upon 
mid-day. His wife was just delib- 
erating whether to go shopping in 
the afternoon, or make calls, or pay a 
visit to the empty park, or take a 
drive out of town ; which way, in 
short, would be the least tedious of 
killing the precious time that God had 


given her, when she was aroused by 
a formidable summons at the door, 
and the noise as of many steps and 
voices besieging the hall. 

What next took place, Caroline 
never clearly remembered. Confused 
recollections remained to her after- 
wards of angry demands for Mark 
Cray, of indignant denials to the ser- 
vant’s assertion that his master was 
in the City ; the hubbub was great, 
the voices were threatening. Caro- 
line’s first surprise was superseded 
by indignation ; and that in its turn 
gave place to alarm. 

You all know what it is to pour oil 
upon a spark of fire, previously ready 
to burst forth into a flame. Y^hen 
the Great Wheal Bang’s shareholders 
had flocked to the Great ^Yheal 
Bang’s offices that morning, they were 
on the balance, as may be said, be- 
tween war and peace : somewhat un- 
certain in their own minds whether 
to treat Mark Cray and Mr. Barker 
as unfortunate fellow-sufferers with 
themselves, or to expend upon them 
their wrongs and their wrath. That 
mistake of the Great Wheal Bang’s 
secretary — as alluded to in the last 
paper — turned the scale. In his dis- 
may and confusion he inadvertently 
alluded to the former irruption of 
water, and the unlucky disclosure 
maddened the throng. They forth- 
with looked upon themselves as 
dreadfully injured people : in fact 
they jumped to the conclusion that 
the Great Wheal Bang itself was little 
better than a swindle : so apt are we 
all to rush into extremes. Barker 
did what he could to stem the torrent ; 
but tho' crowd vociferously demanded 
to see Mark Cray. It was he they 
had known mostly in the affair, for 
Barker was usually at the mine. And, 
not finding Mark answer to their de- 
mands, some of them tore off on the 
spur of the moment in Hansom cabs 
to his residence. 

Caroline stood the very image of 
dismay. She did not show herself; 
she was too much alarmed ; she 
peeped from the half-closed dining- 
room door, and listened, just as Mark 


294 


OSWALD CRAY. 


had done a short while before. Con- 
fused words of ‘‘water ” and “ mine ” 
and “swindle” and “ruin” saluted 
her ears ; and the demands for Mark 
Cray became more threateningly im- 
perative. Some movement of the 
door occurred ; she staggered against 
it ; and it was seen from the hall. 

Perhaps it was only natural to the 
belligerents to conclude that Mark 
Cray was there. They pressed for- 
ward to the room ; but upon seeing 
that the lady was its only occupant, 
the young and lovely lady in her gala 
morning-dress, and the roses chased 
from her face by fear, they drew back 
and clustered outside it. 

“ What is it that you want ?” 
gasped Caroline from her trembling 
lips. 

One of the foremost answered her. 
He was a gentleman, and he raised 
his bat and made bis tone as cour- 
teous as his sense of injury allowed. 
They were very sorry to disturb her^ 
but they must see Mr. Cray. They 
had come to see him, and would see 
him. 

“ I assure you that he is not here,” 
said Caroline, her earnest voice'carry- 
ing truth with it. “ He has been 
gone some time.” 

“He was at the ofiQces this morn- 
ing, madam, and disappeared. We 
were told that he had no doubt come 
home.” 

“It is true,” she answered. “He 
went to the offices very early, and 
came home again about eleven o^clock 
for something he had forgotten, papers 
I think he said. He did not stay 
two minutes ; he got them and went 
back again. What is it that -is the 
matter ?” 

“ Back to the offices ?” they asked, 
disregarding the question. 

“ Yes, back to the offices. Ho said 
he must make haste, for he had a 
great deal to do to-day. I am sure 
you will find him there.” 

She had no suspicion that she was 
asserting what was not true. Whether 
they believed it or not — though most 
of them did believe it— -they had no 
resource but to act upon it. Filing 


out again, they jumped into the cabs> 
and rattled back at the rate of nine- 
and-twenty miles an hour. 

These visitors left Mrs. Cray in a 
grievous state of perplexity and dis- 
tress : for they had spoken of “ruin” 
as connected with the mine. She 
was one of those who cannot bear 
suspense ; she had no patience ; no 
endurance, not even for an hour. In 
a tumult of hurry and emotion, she 
bad her carriage brought round, called 
for Sara Davenal, to whom, however, 
she did not tell what had taken place, 
and drove on to the city almost as 
fast as those cabs had driven, to get 
an explanation from Mark. 

The cabs had arrived previously, 
and their occupants found that they 
had been deceived. No Mark Cray 
was at the offices or had been there 
since his first departure from them. 
They burst bounds, in tongue at any 
rate, and talked of warrants and 
prosecutions and various inconvenient 
things. Other shareholders joined in 
the general fury, and it may perhaps 
be excused to them that when the 
carriage of Mark Cray suddenly ap- 
peared in the general inileej they 
turned their rage upon it. 

That is, they pressed round it and 
saluted it with reproaches not at all 
soft or complimentary. Possibly in 
the moment’s blind anger, they did 
not see that Mark himself was not its 
occupant. They were, on the whole, 
men who knew how to behave them- 
selves, and would have desisted, per- 
haps apologized, when they had time 
and calmness to see that only ladies 
were there : but that time was not 
allowed them. 

One came, with his tall strong form, 
his pale, resolute, haughty face, and 
pushed them right and left, as he laid 
his hand on the carriage door. 

“ Are you men he asked. “ Don’t 
you see that you are terrifying these 
ladies ? Stand back. I had thought — ” 

“ Oh Oswald Cray, save us ! save 
us 1” came the interrupting cry, as 
Caroline Cray caught his hand. 
“ What is it all ? what has hap- 
pened ?” 


OS WAL 

He got her out of the carriage and 
into some adjacent offices, whose 
friendly doors were opened to them. 
Sara followed, unmolested, and Os- 
wald went back to rescue, if might 
be, the carriage. But the gentlemen 
had been a little recalled to common 
sense by the incident ; and the car- 
riage was no longer in danger. Smash- 
ing Mark Cray’s carriage w’ould not 
make good their losses, or bring forth 
. him who was missing. Oswald re- 
turned to Mrs. Cray. 

It is all right again now,” he said. 
“ The carriage is waiting for you a 
little further off. Shall I take you to 
it 

“ But I want to go into the offices, 
Oswald,” she feverishly rejoined. *\I 
want to see Mark. I must see him.” 

Mark is not at the offices. Neither 
would it be well that you should go 
there just now.” 

Not at the offices ! where is he 
then ?” 

I don’t know where he is. I 
should like to find him.” 

He spoke in a cold, proud, bitter 
tone, and it struck dismay to the heart 
of Mrs. Cray. Indeed Oswald’s frame 
of mind was one of the most intense 
bitterness. He had been plausibly 
defrauded of his money ; his pride, 
his sensitive honor, his innate justice, 
had been wounded to the core. All 
this disgrace Mark Cray had been 
earning for himself: Mark his half- 
brother ! 

‘‘ But I must see Mark,” she reiter- 
ated in a helpless manner. “ Don’t 
you know where I can go to find him, 
Oswald ?” 

I do not indeed.” 

want to know what has hap- 
pened. I heard them speak of ruin ; 
of watei; in the mine. Can ?/ou tell 
me ?” 

News has come up that an irrup- 
tion of water has taken place. I find 
that it is not the first : but the other, 
they say, was not serious.” 

And this is ruin ?” 

** I fear so.” 

“ But what right have those men to 


D CRAY. 295 

be so angry, so excited against Mark ? 
He did not let the water in.” 

Oswald made no answer. If Mark 
had treated those shareholders with 
the duplicity that he had treated him, 
they had certainly a very good right 
to be angry and excited. 

• Mrs. Cray turned to the door in 
her restlessness, to take a reconnoi- 
tring glimpse of the state of affairs 
outside. Mark might have come up ! 
might be in the midst of the mob I 
Sara, who had waited for the oppor- 
tunity, drew near to Oswald Cray, 
and spoke in a whisper. 

'' Is it ruin ?” 

Irretrievable — as I believe,” he 
answered, his voice unconsciously as- 
suming a strange tenderness as he 
looked at her pale, sad face. “ Ruin for 
Mark Cray, perhaps for many others.” 

And the words fell heavily on her 
heart. What would become of her 
engagement to pay Mr. Wheatley? 


CHAPTER XLIY. 

THE EVENING OF THE BLOW. 

It was the peculiarity of ]\Iiss Bet- 
tin a Davenal to be more especially 
deaf when suddenly surprised or an- 
noyed. Possibly it is the same with 
most deaf people. Sara Davenal 
stood before her in her drawing-room 
striving to make her comprehend the 
state of affairs relating to the Great 
Wheal Bang ; and not at first suc- 
cessfull3L Miss Bettina had not un- 
derstood why Mrs. Cray had driven 
round in hurried agitation that morn- 
ing and carried off Sara by storm : 
Caroline would not explain why, and 
Sara could not. Sara had returned 
home now, willing to afford every 
explanation ; indeed believing it to 
be her duty so to do ; but Miss Bet- 
tina, offended at the morning’s slight, 
was keeping her heart closed, and 
when that was shut, the ears w^ould 
not open. 


OSWALD CUAt. 


*^What d^you say? You went up 
to the offices ? I should like to know 
•W'hat took you and Caroline to the 
offices ? Young ladies don’t want to 
go to such places.” 

She went to try to see Mark, 
.aunt.” 

Ugh !” growled Miss Bettina. 
*‘Mark told her, indeed I If Mark 
Cray told her to go down the mine 
amidst the lead, she’d do it Doesn’t 
he see enough of her at home?” 

‘‘ She went to try to see Mark, 
Aunt Bettina/’ repeated Sara, more 
slowly. “I — I am afraid they are 
ruined.” 

“ Serve them right,” returned Miss 
Bettina, catching the last word, but 
attaching no importance to it 

** Some news has come up from 
Wales, from the mine ; very disas- 
trous news. Caroline says a Mr. 
Brackenbury called in Grosvenor 
Place last night ” 

Mr. Who ?” 

Mr. Brackenbury. She did not 
know then why he called, but Mt 
Oswald Cray has now told her that 
he brought the first news of it to 
Mark. It had come up to him by 
telegram.” 

Miss Bettina Davenal bent her ear. 

He came up by telegram ! What 
do you mean by that ? Have they 
got a new invention that brings up 
people, pray ? Why are you not 
more careful how you speak. Miss 
Sara Davenal ?” 

I said the news came by telegram, 
aunt. It came to Mr. Brackenbury ; 
and that’s why he called on Mark last 
night. At least, so Mr. Oswald Cray 
told Caroline. Caroline had been 
surprised or annoyed at his visit ; she 
did not understand it ; and she men- 
tioned it to Mr. Oswald Cray.” 

Miss Bettina lifted her hands help- 
lessly. “ What’s any Mr. Bracken- 
bury to me ? — or Oswald Cray either ? 
I want to know why Caroline took 
you to those offices to-day ?” 

“ I am trying to tell you, aunt,” said 
poor Sara. “Mark went up to the 
offices early this morning, before Car- 
oline was awake ; he came home 


again about eleven, saying he had 
forgotten something, but Caroline 
thought his manner absent and 
strange. He left again ; and, soon 
after, the house was invaded by quite 
a crowd of men, gentlemen, demanding 
to see him 

“Had they got an organ with 
them ?” 

Miss Bettina’s interruption took 
Sara rather aback. “ An organ, 
aunt ? I don’t know what you 
mean.” 

“ Not know what I mean I” was 
the wrathful answer. “ Crowds don’t 
collect round houses unless there’s a 
cause ; organs or monkeys, or some 
such nonsense. What did they collect 
there for ?” 

Sara bent her head lower and strove 
to speak with even more distinctness. 
“ It was a crowd of gentlemen, aunt ; 
gentlemen from the City ; though 
perhaps I ought not to have said a 
crowd, but that is what Caroline called 
it to me. They came down in Hand- 
som cabs, she said, and they were 
fierce in their demands to sec Mark, 
and they’d hardly go away again, and 
they said the mine was ruined. Caro- 
line was alarmed, and she went up 
herself to try to see Mark, but she did 
not like to go alone, and came round 
for me.” 

The words were as a hopeless jum- 
ble in Miss Bettina’s ear ; their sense 
nowhere. “ I wish you’d be clear,” 
she said, tartly. “ If you want to tell 
me a thing, tell it in a straightforward 
manner. Why do you mix up crowds 
and organs with it ?” 

“ Dear aunt, I never said a word 
about an organ. The — mine — is — 
ruined,” she added almost out of heart 
with her task. 

“ What’s ruined ?” shrieked Miss 
Bettina. t 

“ The mine. The Great Wheal 
Bang.” 

Miss Bettina heard this time. She 
had lived in expectation of the news 
ever since the Great Wheal Bang first 
jumped into existence. Nevertheless 
it startled her ; and an expression of 
dismay sat on her refined features, as 


OSWALD CRAY. 


she turned them on Sara with a ques- 
tioning gaze. 

I believe the water has got in. 
They say it is utter ruin. And Mark 
Cray can^t be found.’’ 

** What has Mark Cray found 

** He can’t be found, aunt. He was 
not in the offices when we got there, 
and the shareholders — as I suppose 
the people were — attacked the car- 
riage ; some of them have sunk a 
great deal of money in the mine. 
There was no real danger, of course ; 
but Mr. Oswald Cray got us out of 
it.” 

Miss Bettina stared hopelessly. 

Oswald Cray got you out of the 
mine ! What are you talking of ?” 

Out of the carriage, aunt ; not out 
of the mine. That’s in Wales.” 

Do you suppose I thought it was 
in London ?” retorted offended Miss 
Bettina. “You’ll be obligingly in- 
forming me what my own name is, 
next. Where is* Mark Ci'ay ?” 

“ 'No one seems to know. His wife 
does not ; except that he said to her 
he might have to go down to Wales 
this evening, and she was not to men- 
tion it. She is in great uncertainty 
and distress. Aunt, you never saw 
such a commotion as the street was 
in. Oswald Cray said ” 

“ What did he say f” asked Miss 
Bettina, for she had really caught the 
words, but Sara had stopped sud- 
denly. 

“ Well, one does not like to blame 
the absent, and there’s no knowing 
what urgent business may have called 
Mark away ; but Oswald Cray says 
he ought to have stayed, at all risks, 
and faced the shareholders.” 

“ No,” dissented Miss Bettina. 
“ Mark Cray would rather run from a 
danger than face it. Those vacillating 
men are always cowards. Will the 
company be quite broken up ?” 

“ I should think it is broken up 
already,” observed Sara. “ Where’s 
the use of it, now that the mine’s full 
of water ? I heard one man make 
use of the expression that it was 
‘drowned.’ ” 

“ Who’s drowned ?” exclaimed Miss 


297 

Bettina, lifting her head in somealarm. 

“ The shareholders ?” 

“ The mine, aunt.” 

“ The mine drowned I What has 
drowned it ?” 

“ I thought I told you, aunt. There 
has been an irruption of water ; an — 
irruption — of — w^ater ; the mine is 
overflowed with it.” 

“Then, it’s not the company that 
has smashed !” exclaimed Miss Bet- 
tina. 

“ No, it is the mine.” 

“ Tell me about it.” 

It was what Sara had been trying 
to do all along. By dint of trouble 
and patience she contrived at last to 
impart to her aunt a general summary 
of the state of affairs ; and after the 
truth had dawned on Miss Bettina and 
she had in some degree digested it, 
her sense of hearing grew clearer. 

It was invariably the case ; she never 
could hear when at all perplexed. 

“ What does Caroline say to it ?” 
were her first words. 

“ She is as frightened as a child. I 
fear she will not be a good one to bear 
misfortune. I went home with her 
and remained some time ; it was that 
made me so late. When I came 
away she was growing very angry 
with Mark ; she says he ought to 
have told her of it this morning.” 

“ And so he ought,” said Miss Bet- 
tina. “ Ah 1 I never cordially ap- 
proved that match for Caroline, and 
the doctor knew it. She’ll see what 
he’s made of now. You say you 
came in contact with the shareholders ; 
what did they say ?” 

Sara hesitated. They were say- 
ing very disagreeable things. Aunt 
Bettina.” 

“ That’s not telling me what they 
said.” 

“They talked of deceit and — and 
swindling. They seem dreadfully 
bitter against Mark Cray.” 

“ Dreadfully what against him ?” 

“Bitter.” | 

“Oh,” said Miss Bettina. “Mark 
Cray’s a fool in more ways than one ; 
but they should blame themselves, 
not him. Mark told them the mine 


298 


OSWALD CRAY. 


was of gold, I dare say; but it was 
their fault if they believed it. A man 
might come to me and say, if you will 
give me a ten-pouud note I’ll bring it 
you back to-morrow doubled, and if I 
fell into the trap I ought not to turn 
my anger on him. Mark Gray be- 
lieved in the mine : those schemers 
are so sanguine.” 

Sara bent her head until her lips 
almost touched her aunt’s ear, and 
lowered her voice to a cautious tone : 
but somehow it was terribly distinct 
to Miss Bettina. 

Aunt, I fear it is not quite so 
straightforward as you think. There 
was an irruption of water in the sum- 
mer, a slight one, I fancy, and Mark 
and Mr. Barker concealed it. It is 
this which makes the shareholders so 
angry, and they say — they say they 
can prosecute him for it.” 

Who said this ?” asked Miss Bet- 
tina, after a pause. 

‘‘ I can hardly tell who. We heard 
a great deal of talking altogether. 
One gentleman came up to Mr. Os- 
wald Cray as he was taking us to the 
carriage again, and asked him if he 
was not Mark’s brother. Oswald 
replied that he was Mark’s half- 
brother ; and then the gentleman said 
harsh things, and Oswald could not 
stop him, and could not get us by.” 

Miss Bettina poured forth ques- 
tion upon question. Incensed as she 
had been against Mark Cray and his 
wife for the past months, much as 
she had blamed their folly, sharp as 
were her prophecies of the final re- 
sults, perhaps this was worse than 
she had bargained for. She had 
looked for ruin, but not for criminal 
disgrace. 

** And Mark can’t be found, you 
say ?” she asked in a shrill tone. 

^‘No.” 

She sat down to the dinner-table, 
for the day had gone on to evening, 
despatching Neal for a fly while she 
ate a bit, and then she went out, tak- 
ing Sara. “ Grosvenor Place,” she 
said to Neal. And that observant 
domestic knew by the compressed 
lips, the clasped hands, the rigid head. 


how inwardly flurried was his mis- 
tress. 

They found Caroline in a state of 
emotion, bordering upon hysteria — 
fear, anger, perplexity, and despair 
succeeding each other so rapidly that 
her mood may have been said to 
savor of the whole at once. Poor 
Caroline Cray knew nothing of either 
endurance or reticence ; her anger 
against Mark was great at the pre- 
sent moment, and she gave way to it 
loudly. 

Where is he ?” was the first 
pointed question of Miss Davenal. 

“ I don’t know where he is. He 
might have trusted me. It’s not his 
fault if the water has come into the 
mine, and he had no cause to go 
away ; but if he has gone, he might 
have taken me. Barker has been 
down here in a dreadful passion, and 
says Mark was not a good fellow to 
steal a march on him and leave him 
alone all day to fight the battle with 
the shareholders. A hundred people 
have been here after Mark, and it’s a 
shame that I should be left to hear all 
the remarks.” 

Is Oswald Cray with you ?” asked 
Miss Bettina. 

Oh my goodness, I don’t suppose 
Tie’ll come here again,” returned poor 
Caroline, half beside herself. I 
thought him cold and queer in his 
manner to-day. Barker says he is 
vexed at losing his thousand pounds ; 
and that Mark got two hundred more 
from him last night after he knew 
the mine had gone. Oswald said 
nothing to me, but of course he is in- 
censed at it.” 

Miss Davenal had been listening 
with her hand to her ear, and she 
heard pretty well. ‘‘ Do you know 
the particulars of the calamity ?” slie 
asked. “ Is the mine irretrievably 
ruined ?” 

“ I don’t know any thing, except that 
I’m fit to go mad,” she answered, be- 
ginning to see like a petulant child. 

In that one first moment of the 
blow. Miss Davenal was generous 
enough to spare reproaches for all the 
folly of the past, though she had 


OSWALD CRAY. 


299 


plenty on her tongue’s end. She had 
not sat down since she entered ; she 
had stood rigid and upright; and 
when she went out to the fly she 
ordered it to Mr. Oswald Cray’s. 

‘‘ Tell the man to drive quickly,” 
said Miss J3ettina to JSTeal. “ What 
do you say, Sara ? Let you stop with 
Caroline ? Caroline wants neither 
you nor me : I can see that. There’ll 
be trouble over this.” 

Mrs. Cray had not chosen an inapt 
word when she said Oswald must be 
incensed against Mark. It was pre- 
cisely Oswald’s present state of feel- 
ing. He saw that the thousand 
pounds had been nothing but a stop- 
gap ; not drawn from him for his 
own good and benefit, as Mark so 
largely boasted, but for Mark’s own 
necessities. And as to the two hun- 
dred pounds of the previous night, 
the money of the firm — Oswald boiled 
over at the thought of that. Ob, 
why could not Mark have been up- 
right and open ! why could he not 
have gone to Oswald with the truth 
upon his lip, and said. Let me have 
this two hundred pounds in my dire 
necessity, and I will repay you when 
I can. Oswald was not the brother 
to refuse him. 

Oswald had had a battle with him- 
self. When he returned home after 
that scene in the city, feeling that his 
money, the twelve hundred pounds, 
had been irretrievably lost, he sat 
down and thought. Should he cancel 
the offer made to Frank Allister to go 
out to Spain, sind take the appoint- 
ment himself, as at first intended ? 
Was he justified in foregoing it under 
this unexpected loss ? The same con- 
siderations swayed him now as pre- 
viously ; his own interest, versus 
Frank’s health, perhaps life ; but how 
weighty a balance was now thrown 
into his own scale ! 

If ever Oswald had need of a better 
guidance than his own, he had need 
now. He was conscious of it. Per- 
haps of bis own self ho could not 
have yielded to do the right ; to do as 
he believed would be right in the 


sight of God. He had many failings, 
as we all have ; and his pride often 
stood in his way ; but he had one 
great and good gift — a conscience that 
was ever prompting him on the up- 
ward way. 

'‘No, I will not hesitate,” he said 
to himself. “ The necessity for Alli- 
ster’s going remains the same, and he 
shall go. I must get over this other 
loss as I best can, though, it may 
take years ; but I’ll not set my own 
interest against Allister’s life.” 

And so Frank Allister and his 
sister received no countermand, and 
they proceeded to Mr. Oswald Cray’s 
that evening, to talk over arrange- 
ments, as it had been decided they 
should ; and they never knew the 
sacrifice that had been made for them, 
or had the least suspicion that Mr. 
Oswald Cray had given up the ap- 
pointment. 

When Miss Davenal and Sara 
arrived, Mrs. Benn received them. 
That errant husband of hers, and 
valued servant of the firm, was out 
again. This was not Mrs. Bonn’s 
cleaning day ; but any little extra 
duty, though it was but the receiving 
of a visitor at unusual hours, put her 
out excessively ; and it was not usual 
for a levee of ladies to attend the 
house in an evening. She appeared 
at the door with the ordinary crusty 
face and a caudle in her hand. 

“ Is Mr. Oswald Cray at home ?” 
was Neal’s demand. 

“ Yes, he is,” returned Mrs. Benn, 
speaking as if somebody had injured 
her very much indeed. 

Neal stepped back to the fly, and 
opened the door for the ladies to 
alight. Mrs. Benn stared at the pro- 
ceedings with all her eyes. 

“ Well, if this don’t bang every 
thing !” she ejaculated, partly to her- 
self, partly to the street. “ If he was 
a-going to have a party to-night, he 
might have told me, I think. And 
that there Benn ! to go out, and never 
light the hall lamp first ! It cracks 
my arms to do it : a nasty, high, 
awk’ard thing. Will he be for order- 


300 


OSWALD CRAY. 


ing tea for ’em, I wonder ? when 
there ain’t nothing but a hot loaf in 

the house, and one pat o’ but ” 

Show me to Mr. Oswald Cray’s 
private rooms,” came the interrupt- 
ing voice of Miss Davenal, as she 
entered. 

This way,” returned sulky Mrs. 
Benn, “there’s one of ’em there 
already.” 

The one of ’em there must have 
applied to the assumed evening party, 
for in the sitting-room sat Jane Alli- 
ster. Her bonnet was off; her shawl 
was unpinned ; her fair -^face was 
serene and contented as the face of 
one in her own home. Miss Davenal 
bowed stiffly in her surprise ; and the 
rebellious jealousy rose up in Sara’s 
heart. 

“ Is Mr. Oswald Cray not here ?” 
asked Miss Davenal, halting on the 
threshold. 

Jane Allister came forward with 
her good and candid face ; and Miss 
Davenal’s reserved tone relaxed. “ Mr. 
Oswald Cray is down-stairs with my 
brother and another gentleman. They 
are settling some business together: 
I don’t think they will be long.” 

Miss Davenal did not hear, but 
Sara repeated the words to her. 
They sat down ; and Miss Allister, 
finding the elder lady was deaf, took 
her seat by Sara. 

“ I had once the pleasure of seeing 
you in an omnibus, I think,” she said, 
with the open freedom that in her 
was so pleasing. “You wanted to 
be put down at Essex Street in the 
Strand.” 

Sara bowed her head. She re- 
membered too well the day and all 
that was connected with it. “1 
think,” she said, “you are Miss 
Allister ?” 

“ Yes, I am Jean Allister. I came 
here to-night to settle particulars 
about our Spanish journey,” she 
added, as if in apology for being 
found there. “ I am going to live in 
Spain.” 

Sara heard it as one in a dream. 
Oswald Cray was going to Spain for 
a lengthened residence : he had told 


her so when she was in that room a 
fortnight ago. If »Tean Allister was 
going with him, why then it must be 
that they were to be married im- 
mediately. 

Her face flushed ; her brow grew 
moist. In a sort of desperation, in 
her eager wish to know the worst at 
once, she turned to Jean Allister. 

“ Are you going with Mr. Oswald 
Cray ?” 

“ I am going with my brother.” 

“ With — your — brother ! And not 
with Mr. Oswald Cray ?” 

“ No, surely not. How could I go 
with Mr. Oswald Cray ? It would 
not be proper,” she simply added. 

“ I — I thought — I meant as his wife,” 
said poor Sara, all confused in her 
heart sickness. “ I beg your pardon.” 

“As his wife ! — Mr. Oswald Cray’s I 
Nay, but that is an unlikely thing to 
fancy. I am not suitable to Mr. 
Oswald Cray ? Do you know him ?” 

“ Oh yes.” 

“ Then you might have been sure 
he’d not cast his thoughts to a plain 
body like me. Why should he ? I 
am not his equal in position. He has 
been a brother to Frank, and I rever- 
ence him beyond any one I know, as 
a good and true friend. That’s all.” 

Why did her heart give a great 
bound as of hope at the words, when 
she knew — when she knew that he 
was lost to her ? Oswald Cray came 
bounding up the stairs, but a mist 
had gathered before Sara’s eyes, and 
she saw nothing clearly. 

“ Frank is waiting for you, Jean. 
He will not come up-stairs again.” 

“Does he know about every thing ?” 

“Every thing, I think. We have 
discussed it all, and he will tell you. 
But he is coming again in the morn- 
ing.” 

Oswald had spoken as ho shook 
hands with Miss Davenal. Another 
moment and they were alone to- 
gether : the young Scotch lady had 
left the room. 

“ Mr. Oswald Cray, you must tell 
me all you know of this unhappy 
business, from beginning to end,’' 
said Miss Davenal. “ I have come to 


OSWALD CRAY. 


301 


you for the information, and I beg you 
to conceal nothing. Is Mark Cray in 
danger 

Oswald scarcely knew in what 
sense to take the word. He hesitated 
as he looked at Miss Davenal. 

He is your half-brother, he is my 
nephew by marriage,^’ she said ; but 
he is a rogue, and a disgrace to both 
of us, if what I hear be true. Surely 
we may speak freely of him one to 
the other I Can he be arrested for 
any thing worse than debt ? I be- 
lieve he can ; by you, if by no one 
else.’’ 

So far as I know, there is no one 
else,” replied Oswald. Of course 
he is safe for me : he is my father’s 
son.” 

And how has all this come about ? 
Let me hear the whole of it ; the best 
and the worst. His wife professes to 
know nothing, and it was of no use 
my asking her. The water has got 
into the mine.” 

It is said to be overflowing it ; 
but particulars are not ascertained 
yet. Has Mark Cray been heard 
of?” 

Tell it to Sara,” said Miss Dave- 
nal, drawing up her bent head. I 
don’t hear quite all. She will repeat 
it to me at home.” 

It Tvas a confession of deafness 
that perhaps had never been heard 
before from Miss Davenal. Oswald 
turned to Sara, and gravely related 
what he knew. It was not much 
more than Sara had known before, 
and he suppressed the account of 
Mark’s treachery towards himself. 
But Miss Davenal, who, if she could 
not hear, could put questions, par- 
ticularly pressed him on these points. 

They talk of ruin,” observed 
Sara. Is a mine necessarily ruined 
— rendered good for nothing — by the 
irruption of water into it ?” 

Hot necessarily so. But, to get 
1 the water out, generally involves a 
I great cost of time and money. In 
I this case, by what we can hear, thfe 

I 

I 


irruption appears lo be unusually 
great, and there are no funds to meet 
it.” 

^*And you think it is certainly 
ruin ?” 

“ Utter ruin to Mark Cray. Partial 
ruin to some of the shareholders.” 

A half cry escaped Sara’s lips. 

What will Caroline do ? — what will 
become of her ?” 

^‘Become of her!” shrilly echoed 
Miss Davenal, whose ear had been 
again bent. ‘‘ She and Mark should 
have thought of that before. I wonder 
what he’d give to have his good prac- 
tice at Hallingham back again now ?” 

There was nothing to remain for : 
Oswald was almost as much in the 
dark as they were ; but he promised 
to pay a visit to Miss Davenal as 
soon as he had learnt more. He took 
her out to the fly upon his arm, placed 
her in it, and turned to Sara. 

The last time I saw you I had a 
journey in my head,” he said in a 
low tone : “ I told you I was going 
to Spain.” 

Yes ?” 

“ I am not going now. I have 
given up the idea. We shall send 
out another instead ; my friend, Frank 
Allister. Good-night ; good-night. 
Miss Davenal.” 

Severely upright in the carriage 
sat Miss Davenal, her countenance 
one picture of condemnation for the 
absent Mark. Only once did she 
open her lips to Sara opposite to her, 
and that was as the carriage turned 
out of the glare and gas of the more 
populous streets to the quiet one 
which contained their home. 

“ What would your brother Edward 
say to this, were he at home ?” 

What would he say to something 
else ? As the carriage drew up to 
the door, a female figure was slowly 
pacing before it, as if in waiting. 
And Sara shrank into the remotest 
corner of the carriage with a shiver 
(Jf dread, for she recognized her as 
the stranger, Catherine Wentworth. 


302 


OSWALD CRAY. 


CHAPTER XLY. 

HARD USAGE FOR DICK. 

Do you remember the severe 
weather of the Christmas of 1860 ? 
How for once we had an old-fashioned 
Christmas day, when the icicles hung 
bright and frozen from the trees, and 
the ponds were alive with skaters, 
after the manner of the Christmases 
we read of, of the days gone by. It 
was indeed a bitter winter, that at the 
close of 1860, and an unusual number 
of the poor and friendless, the sick 
and ailing, passed from its biting 
sharpness to a better world. 

In the mind of one, it almost 
seemed as though he had held some 
mysterious prevision of it; and that 
was Oswald Cray. When delibera- 
ting, the previous autumn, whether he 
should go to Spain himself, times and 
again had the thought recurred to 
him — what if we have a sharp winter ? 
— how will Allister weather it ? And 
now that the sharp winter, more ter- 
ribly sharp than even Oswald dreamt 
of, had indeed come, he was thankful 
to have sacrificed his own self-interest. 
In that more southern climate, Allis- 
ter would not feel the cold of this ; 
and it almost seemed as if the thought 
alone brought to Oswald his reward. 

Isn’t it stunning, Aunt Bett 

You will probably recognize the 
words as likely to emanate from no- 
body’s lips but Mr. Dick Davenal’s. 
Mr. Dick had arrived for the holi- 
days ; rather against the inclination 
as well as the judgment of Aliss Bet- 
tina, but she did not see her way in 
courtesy to exclude him. Leopold 
had been in town with her since 
October, she and Sara nursing him ; 
so it would have been unkind to keep 
Dick at school alone for the holidays. 
Miss Bettina said London was a bad 
place for Dick ; he would be getting 
out, and doing all sorts of mischief ; 
perhaps get run over, perhaps get 
lost; it was uncertain what: but 
Sara, in her love for the boy, promised 
to keep him in order and out of harm. 
A rash undertaking. 


What of the Great Wheal Bang ? 
The Great Wheal Bang was gone for- 
ever I It had passed away ignobly, 
never probably to be heard of as a 
mine again, except in name at certain 
law courts, to which some of its angry 
shareholders persisted in bringing it. 
Mr. Barker was abroad, and did not 
come home to face the storm ; it 
appeared there was no law to force 
him home, the matters of the Wheal 
Bang escaped that ; and he carried on 
a free-and-easy correspondence with 
some of the exasperated shareholders, 
who told him in their answers that be 
decidedly deserved hanging. 

And Mark Cray ? Mark Cray was 
nowhere. The defunct company did 
their best to find him, but, try as they 
would, they could not discover his 
hiding-place. They assumed he was 
out of the country, most probably with 
Barker, and perhaps their home search 
was, through that very assumption, 
less minute than it might have been. 
A run-from danger is always more 
formidable than a faced one ; and if 
Mark Cray had only faced those share- 
holders he would no doubt have found 
their bite less hurtful than their bark. 
That they were loud, and threatening, 
and angry, was true ; but Mark would 
have done well to meet the worst, and 
get it over. The luxurious house in 
Grosvenor Place had been long ago 
abandoned by Mark and his wife ; 
and so temporarily had it been lived 
in, so fleeting had been the enjoyment 
of the carriages, the servants, the 
society, and all the rest of the acces- 
sories, that altogether that time seemed 
only like a dream. 

“ Isn’t it stunning, Aun^ Bett ?” 

Dick was standing at the dining- 
room window, his sparkling eyes de- 
vouring the ice in the streets, and the 
tempting slides in the gutters. A 
young gentleman who was coming to 
the house with a small tray of meat 
upon his back had just gone down one 
beautifully, and Dick longed to follow 
him. Leo stepped to the window to 
look, and thought he should like it 
too ; but Leo was not in strong health, 
as Dick was. 


OSWALD CRAY. 


303 


Isn’t it what asked Aunt Bett, 
looking up quickly, Raining 

‘‘ Stunning,” roared Dick. 

I wish you would learn to speak 
like a gentleman, Richard, and not 
use those expressions. If they do -for 
school, they don’t do for home.” 

‘‘I have been oiling my skates this 
morning,” continued Dick. “ They 
are rather short, but they’ll do.” 

Oiling what ?” 

My skates.” 

What cakes ?” 

Ska — a — tes. Aunt Bett. Every 
thing will bear to-day.” 

^'Nothing bears in London,” said 
Miss Bettina. “ You must not try it, 
Richard. A great many boys are 
drowned every winter in the Ser- 
pentine.” 

*^What muffs they must be!” re- 
turned Dick : “Aunt Bett, the ponds 
would bear yon, if you’d put on a pair 
of skates and try. They’d bear me a 
hundred times over.” 

“ Would they ?” said Miss Bettina. 
She turned to Sara, who was busy at 
the table, and pointed with her finger 
to indicate Dick. 

“ I will not have him go into this 
danger. Do you hear, Sara ? You 
undertook to keep him out of harm if 
he came to us, so see to it. Perhaps 
the best plan will be to lock up his 
skates. I don’t want to have him 
brought home drowned.” 

Dick was resentful. He might have 
broken into open rebellion but for fear 
of being sent back to enjoy his holi- 
days at school. He sat in a sullen 
sort of mood, on the edge of a chair, 
his hands in his pockets, clicking their 
contents about, and his boots beating 
time restlessly on the carpet. 

“How it’s all altered I” he ex- 
claimed. 

“How is wdiat altered?” inquired 
Sara. They were alone then. Miss 
Bettina had gone from the room to 
give Leopold his eleven o’clock dose 
of strengthening medicine. 

“ Since Uncle Richard’s time. Why I 
he bought me those very skates last 
winter, when that frost came in No- 
vember. That is, he sent word to 


school that I might have them. And 
then we had no more ice at all I and 
Uncle Richard kept wishing through 
the holidays there might be some for 
us I He^d have let us skate.” 

Sara was silent. Things had indeed 
altered since then. 

“ It’s an awful shame of Aunt Bett ! 
The ice stunning thick, and a fellow^ 
can’t enjoy it I Drowmed ! She might 
get drowned herself perhaps. But I 
shouldn’t. Uncle Richard would have 
let us skate in Hallingham 1” added 
Dick, excessively resentful. “ He 
wanted us to skate.” 

“ But I think it was a little different, 
Richard dear. Those ponds at Hal- 
lingham were not deep : and people 
do get drowned in the Serpentine. 
And there’s nobody to go with you.” 

Dick tossed his head. “ Perhaps 
you think I w^ant somebody 1 You 
had better send a nursemaid. Fine 
holidays, these are I” 

A few more minutes of sitting still, 
and Dick could stand it no longer. 
He darted into the passage and 
snatched his cap. Sara, quick as he, 
caught him at the street-door. 

“ Dick, it must not be. You know 
I must answer for you to Aunt 
Bettina.” 

“All right, Sara. I’m not going 
near the Serpentine, or any other deep 
water. ” 

“You promise ?” 

“Yes; on my honor. There 1 Why, 
I have not got my skates. I’m going 
up and dowm the street-slides ; that’s 
all. You can’t expect me to sit twirl- 
ing my thumbs all day in Aunt Bett’s 
parlor, as Leo does.” 

She had no fear then. If Dick onee 
gave his honor, or if put upon his 
honor, he could but be a loyal knight. 
Left to himself, no promise exacted 
from him, he would have decamped 
right off to the Serpentine, or to any 
thing else mischievous and dangerous ; 
but not now. 

But Dick “ took it out” — the words 
were his own — in street-slides. All 
the most attractive ruUseaux within 
a few miles of home, Mr. Dick exer- 
cised his legs upon. It required a 


304 


OSWALD CRAY. 


terrible amount of resolution to keep 
his promise, not to ‘‘ go near’^ the 
forbidden water ; and how long Dick 
stood in envy, his nose frozen to the 
park railings as he watched the 
streams pouring towards the ice, he 
never knew. He was not in a good 
humor ; the slides were very ignoble 
pastime indeed, only fit for street- 
boys ; and he thought if there was 
one gentleman more ill-used than 
another that day in all Her Majesty^s 
dominions, that one was himself. 

Mr. Dick stopped out his own time. 
He knew that he would be expected 
home about one o’clock to have some- 
thing to eat ; but as nothing had been 
expressly said to him, he took rather 
a savage pleasure in delaying his 
return, punishing his hunger. He 
saw a man selling hot potatoes; and 
he bought three and ate them, skins 
and all. Dick was not in the least 
troubled with proud notions : Leo 
would have looked askance at the 
tempting edible, and passed on the 
othj0r side ; Dick danced round the 
man’s machine while he feasted, in 
the face and eyes of the passers-by. 
If Miss Davenal had but seen him ! 

Altogether, what with the slides, 
the hot potatoes, and the temper, Mr. 
Richard pavenal remained out long 
after dark. When he began to think 
it might be as well to return home, 
and to feel as if fifteen wolves were 
inside him fighting for their dinner, he 
was in some obscure and remote 
region of Chelsea, where the popula- 
tion was more crowded than aristo- 
cratic, and the ice abundant. Hap- 
pening to cast his eyes to a clock iti a 
baker’s shop, he saw that it wanted 
but twenty-five minutes to six. 

My I” ejaculated Dick in his dis- 
may. Miss Davenal’s dinner-hour 
had been altered from six to five 
while the boys were with her, and 
Dick had certainly meant to be home 
to time. He had not thought it was 
so late as this. Dick’s hair stood on 
end, and the wolves fought desper- 
ately. 

Suppose old Bett should say I 
shan’t have any dinner 1” 


The shop next door to the baker’s 
was a cook’s shop — as they are called : 
and perhaps Dick’s dreadful doubt 
caused him irresistibly to linger for a 
fond moment at the window and ga25e 
at the attractions inside. Under 
Dick’s very nose was a steaming 
mound of beef just out of the pot, 
some parsnips round it ; other joints 
were there in plenty ; peas-pudding, 
plum-pudding, sausages, and a whole 
host of things irresistible to a boy in 
Dick’s famishing condition. He me- 
chanically put his hand into his 
pocket, lest a stray sixpence might 
by some miracle be there. In vain. 
Dick Davenal was one who could not 
keep money for an hour, and his 
having sufficient to buy the potatoes 
was a notable fact. 

Hurried as he was, he could not tear 
himself from the tempting shop. The 
shopman in a white apron, a great 
carving-knife and fork in his hands, 
was cutting thin slices from a cold 
round of beef, and placing them in the 
scale on a piece of white paper. The 
balance went down, and he rolled the 
paper round the meat and handed it 
to the customer waiting for it, a young 
woman — or rather lady, for she looked 
like one — who wore a crape veil over 
her face. She gave him sixpence and 
some half-pence in return, but the man 
did not seem to like the sixpence ; be 
held it close to the gas, and then 
showed it to her, and she put her veil 
aside and bent her face nearer while 
she looked at it. 

If ever Dick Davenal believed he 
was in a dream, he believed so then. 
He rubbed his eyes ; he rubbed his 
frozen nose ; he stared through the 
intervening steam ; and he pinched 
himself to see whether he was awake. 
For that face was the face of his cousin, 
Mrs. Cray. 

Dick could not believe his senses. 
The shopman apparently decided that 
the sixpence was a good one, and put 
it in his till, and the lady had left the 
shop before Dick recovered his bewil- 
derment. He had believed Mr. and 
Mrs. Cray were abroad. From a 
shrewd boy like Dick it was impossible 


CRAY. 


OSWALD 

to guard the secret that something 
was wrong ; besides, he had heard of 
the failure of the Great Wheal Bang, 
and that its promoters were away, 
abroad or somewhere. 

But that was surely Caroline gone 
out of the shop with the paper of meat 
in her hand ! Dick^s spirits w^ent 
down to zero. However he might 
condescend to the purchase of hot po- 
tatoes, and such -like stray escapades, 
he did not like to see Caroline buy 
cooked meat and carry it aw^ay with 
her. Dick knew that something or 
other must be all wrong, and he sud- 
denly felt as timid as Leo. 

She crossed the road and went down 
a by-street, where the lights were 
scanty and the houses poor. Dick 
followed her. He saw how tightly her 
veil was drawn over her face ; and she 
walked with her head down ; it might 
be to keep out the cold, or to avoid 
observation. 

She turned into a house on the left- 
hand side, whose door stood open ; a 
shabby-looking house, but sufficiently 
large. Dick, hardly certain in his own 
mind yet, deliberated whether he 
should follow her and show himself ; 
and when he at length went to the door 
nobody was in sight. He took courage 
and knocked ; and a woman came out 
of the parlor on the right. 

Is Mrs. Cray here asked Dick. 

^^Mrs. wffio 

“Mrs. Cray. She’s just gone in. 

“ There’s nobody here of that name. 
Who’s Mrs. Cray ? You have mis- 
took the house, young man.” 

Dick had his wits about him, as the 
saying runs, and they were sufficiently 
alert to prevent his insisting on the 
point of its being Mrs. Cray. “I’m 
sure I saw some lady come in,” said 
he. 

“ Mrs. Marks came in a minute ago, 
for I met her in the passage. First 
floor if you w^ant her.” 

“ Can I go up ?” asked Dick. 

“ That’s as you please,” returned 
the woman, who w’^as crusty enough 
to be first cousin to Mrs. Benn. “ The 
other lodgers in the house is nothing 

19 


305 

to me, wffio goes up to ’em or who 
doesn’t.” 

She retreated inside the parlor and 
banged the door. Dick stumbled up- 
stairs in the dark, the words “ first 
floor” having guided him. Some light 
came in from a window on the land- 
ing and he distinctly heard Caroline’s 
voice in the front room. Dick fashion, 
he burst in without knocking. 

Caroline gave a short scream. She 
w^as untying her bonnet, and the paper 
of meat, slowly unfolding itself, lay on 
the table. It was a plain sitting-room, 
carpeted with drugget, a large sofa 
covered with dark blue stuff seeming 
to take up one side of it. A white 
cloth was spread on part of the table 
with some tea cups and saucers, a loaf 
of bread and a piece of butter. 

“ Caroline, I was sure it was you I” 

The first moment of surprise over, 
Caroline threw herself on a chair and 
burst into tears. Dick sat down oppo- 
site to her and stared round the room, 
staring off his bewilderment. Poor 
Dick was not possessed of any super- 
fluous sentiment, and the sobs and 
emotion only made him feel awkward. 
The sight of a home face was too much 
for Mrs. Cray. 

“ Is Mark here ?” Dick asked pres- 
ently. 

“Is^o.” 

Dick glanced round again, but he 
could see no door except the one he had 
entered at. 

“I’m sure I heard you talking to 
somebody, Caroline. It let me know 
which was the room.” 

“I was talking to myself. The 
words I said were ' I hope Mark will 
not be long,’ and I suppose I spoke 
them aloud.” 

A few final sobs and the emotion 
passed. Dick was timid, almost nerv- 
ous, and he never remembered to have 
been so in his life. A thought crossed 
the boy’s mind of what his Uncle 
Richard would say, had he lived to see 
this curious state of things. 

“ Do you live here, Caroline ?” 

^•Yes. We went aw^ay in the 
country for a little time at first ; but 


306 


OSWALD CRAY. 


it was so out of the way of hearing 
any thing, so dull, so wretched, that 
we came back again. !Mark thought 
it would be better to come pretty near 
to the old neighborhood ; that there 
was less chance of our being looked 
for there than elsewhere.’^ 

You don’t have all the house.” 

''All the house !” echoed Caroline. 
“We only have this room and the use 
of the kitchen, which 1 hardly ever go 
down to. That sofa is a bed,” she 
added, pointing to it. " Mark draws 
it out at night.” 

Dick felt more at sea than ever. 

Has Mark got no money ?” 

Caroline shook her head. There’s 
a little left ; not much. We did not 
save a thing from Grosvenor Place. 
People came in and took possession, 
and I got frightened and left it. After- 
wards, when my clothes were asked 
for, they sent me a boxful of the 
poorest I had, and said those were all. 
1 don’t know whether it was that they 
kept the best, or that the maid -ser- 
vants helped themselves to them. 
Dick I” she passionately added, “ I’d 
rather die than have to bear all 
this.” 

“ Do you have to go out and buy 
the meat ?” questioned Dick, unable 
to get the practical part he had seen 
out of his head. 

There’s a boy that waits on the 
lodgers, the landlady’s son, and he 
goes on errands sometimes. Mark 
thought we should be safer in a house 
like this, where there are different 
lodgers, and one does not interfere 
with the concerns of the others ; that 
we should be less likely to attract 
notice. In truth, we were afraid to 
venture on a better place lest persons 
might recognize us.” 

^‘Afraid of what ?” questioned Dick. 

I’m sure I hardly know,” she 
answered. Of being arrested, I 
suppose.” 

" I say, does Sara know you are 
here ?” 

Caroline shook her head. “ I have 
written her a note twice, saying we 
are safe ; but Mark would not let me 


give the address. Aunt Bettina has 
shaken us off, there’s no doubt ; she’ll 
never forgive Mark.” 

“ Forgive him for what ?” 

" Oh, altogether,” returned Caroline 
with a gesture of impatience. “ There 
was the leaving Hallingham, and 
Sara’s money, and other things.” 

Where is Mark ?” continued Dick. 

“ He won’t be long. He goes out 
a little after dark, but he does not care 
to venture much by daylight. And 
so, you are up for the holidays, I 
suppose ?” 

Dick nodded. ^‘Aunt Bett wouldn’t 
have us at midsummer. But Leo 
broke his arm, and he wasn’t strong, 
and she sent for him ; and then she 
said I might come up for Christmas, 
and we could both go back to school 
together. I say, wasn’t it unkind of 
her not to have us in the summer ? 
She said her house was small. Sum- 
mer holidays are jollier than winter 
ones, especially when they don’t let 
you go on the ice.” 

Did a remembrance cross Caroline 
of somebody else who would not have 
them in the summer ? — whose house 
was not small ? Probably not. Caro- 
line had room only for her own griefs. 
Since the falling of the blow she had 
existed in a state of bewilderment. 
The change was so great, the order 
of things so completely altered, that 
at times she believed she must be in a 
prolonged dream, and should shortly 
wake up to reality. As one who is 
suddenly put ashore in a foreign 
country, where the land, the customs, 
the people, and the tongue are all 
strange to him, and he can only accept 
them passively, yielding himself per- 
force to the necessity of circumstances, 
so it was with Caroline Cray. Be- 
lieve me, I am telling you no untrue 
story. 

“ How you cough !” exclaimed Dick, 
as she was interrupted by a heavy fit 
of coughing, not for the first time. 

“ I caught a bad cold. It was very 
bad for a day or two, and I lay in bed. 
Oh, Dick I I wonder if I shall ever 
have a bed-room again !” 


0 S W ALD 

Couldn’t you have a bed-room as 
well as this room sensibly answered 
Dick. 

There was only this room to let 
when we came here, and we thought 
it would do. It’s tolerably good-look- 
ing you see, and we are more to our- 
selves. Every week, too, we ‘ are 
hoping to leave it.” 

Where to go to ?” 

I don’t know. Mark says some- 
thing is sure to turn up.” 

I say, do they know about this in 
Barbadoes ?” 

“Not from us. I dare say Aunt 
Bettina has taken care to tell them. 

Is she as deaf as ever, Dick?” 

“ She’s deafer. And she’s getting a 
regular old woman. What do you 
think ? She’d not let me go out skat- 
ing this morning, for fear ” 

A gentleman entered, and cut Dick’s 
revelations short. The boy lookec>'at 
him in puzzled bewilderment, for he 
thought he knew him, and yet did not. 

It was a full minute before Dick rec- 
ognized him for Mark Cray. 

Formerly Mark had whiskers and 
no moustache ; now he had a mous- 
tache and no whiskers, and his beard 
was growing and his face looked longer. 
He had on blue spectacles too. Al- 
together Dick w'as hardly certain 
yet. 

^ Mark did not seem glad to see him. 
In manner he rather seemed to resent 
the accident which had discovered 
them to Dick, than to feel pleasure at 
it. Caroline put the slices of beef upon 
a dish, made the tea, and asked Dick 
to partake. 

But Dick declined. And nobody 
perhaps would have given careless 
Dick credit for the true motive, or for 
the real self-denial that it was to a 
hungry boy. He had somehow drawn 
a conclusion that Mr. and’Mrs. Cray 
had not too much meat for themselves, 
and he would not lessen it. 

“ I can’t stay now,” he said, rising ; 

“ I shall have Aunt Bett at me as it 


CRAY. 307 

is. Good-night, Mr. Cray, good-night, 
Caroline.” 

Mr. Cray followed him down the 
stairs. “ You must be very cautious 
not to say that you found us here,” 
he said. “ Can we depend upon 
you ?” 

“ As if you couldn’t,” returned Dick. 
“ I know. A fellow of ours at school 
has got a big brother, and he has to be 
in hiding nine months at least out of 
every year. I’ll tell nobody but 
Sara.” 

He vaulted off, or perhaps Mark 
Cray’s injunction might have been ex- 
tended to Sara in particular. When 
he reached home. Miss Bettina, who 
had believed nothing less but that he 
was drowned, and had sent Neal to a 
circuit of police stations, met him in 
the corridor, followed by Sara and Leo. 

“You ungrateful bo}^ ! Where 
have you been ?” 

“ Don’t, Aunt Bettina ! No need to 
seize hold of me in that way. I have 
only been sliding. I haven’t been to 
the water.” ^ 

“ You shall go back to school to- 
morrow,” said Miss Be/ctina, as she 
turned in to the dining-room. 

Dick caught his cousin by the arm. 
“You be off after Aunt Bett, Leo, I 
w^ant to speak to Sara. I say,” he 
continued in a whisper, as Leo obeyed 
him, “ I have seen Caroline and Mark 
Cray I” 

“Nonsense, Dick! why did you 
stay out so and frighten us ?” 

“ I have seen them. I should have 
been in earlier but for that. Fright- 
ened ? How stupid you must all be ! 
As if I couldn’t take care of myself. 
I saw Carine in a beef and pudding 
shop, buying cold meat, and I watched 
where she went to, and I’ve been 
there for half an hour, and I saw 
Mark 1 He has shaved off his whis- 
kers, and wears ” 

“ Hush 1” breathed Sara, as Dorcas 
came up the stairs. “ You must tell 
me later.” 




308 


O S W A I. D C R A Y. 


CHAPTER XLYI. 

WEARY DAYS. 

The cold, bitter, biting winter 
passed away, and when the lovely 
spring came round again, little trace 
was left of its elfects, save in the re- 
membrance of those in whose homes 
sickness, or privation, or death had 
been busy. 

Two of those visitations had been 
rife in the poor home of Caroline 
Cray : sickness and* privation. Per- 
haps you noticed Caroline’s reply to 
Dick’s questions as to whether Mark 
had no money : there was a little left, 
she said, not much. Left from what y 
Dick did not ask. 

If ever an unfortunate company had 
come to grief more completely than 
other unfortunate companies, it was 
surely that noted one, the Great Wheal 
Bang. Sympathizing friends — Bar- 
ker’s and Mark’s — were wont to assure 
those gentlemen that they had man- 
aged wretchedly and if we may dare 
to assume that the reproach was lev- 
elled at the fact of their having secured 
nothing for themselves, it was a right 
one. On the day that Mark Cray 
went up to the offices for the last 
time, he had but a trifling sum of 
money about him : Caroline had even 
less in her own purse ; and that was 
all. Barker’s word of precaution had 
secured the diamond ring and studs, 
and these were converted into money, 
Mark and Barker equally dividing 
the spoil. Barker with his share took 
a little tour abroad while the cloud 
blew over ; Mark, as you have seen, 
went into hiding, and lived upon his 
part as long as it held out. 

Yes, it was an unhappy fact, very 
debasing indeed after all the glory of 
Grosvenor Place, lowering as you 
may feel it to be to this history, Mr. 
Mark Cray hid himself by day, and 
slipped out to take the air at dusk in 
a moustache and blue spectacles. 
Mark Cray could but be a coward in 
the hour of trial ; he ran from the 
danger instead of facing it. Had 
Mark but looked the angry share- 


holders and the trouble in the face, ho 
need not have been so very fearful ; 
but to look a difficulty in the face "was 
not in the nature of Mark Cray. He 
scarcely understood what he was 
afraid of ; he did not know what they 
could do to him ; whether imprison 
him, or make him a bankrupt, or 
what ; and Mark would rather have 
jumped into the sea than ascertained. 
He was exactly like a child who runs 
away screaming from a dark closet, 
and dare not look to see whether 
cause for terror was there. Some of 
us, my friends, have been sadly 
frightened at shadows. 

When this state of affairs was to 
end, and what was to get Mark out 
of his difficulty he did not at present 
see. As long as the money lasted, he 
was not unduly anxious. He had 
great faith in something turning 
ujt,” he had unlimited faith in Barker ; 
Barker’s letters were pretty frequent, 
and in the highest degree cheering. 
Barker happened to have a cousin, 
about the nineteenth remove, settled 
at Honfleur in Normandie, and Barker 
had steered for the same port, and 
seemed to be living at ease there. To- 
wards the close of the winter, he 
wrote word to Mark that he had 
something good in contemplation, 
connected with Paris, and if it came 
to any thing Mark should share in it. 

But when Mark’s money was gone, 
things changed. He grew restless 
and gloomy. He could not starve, he 
could not go to the workhouse : he 
must do something. Miss Bettina 
Davenal would not help them : she 
said she could not — perhaps with jus- 
tice. Leopold Davenal had been an 
expense to her, and was still ; ho 
went back to school after the Christ- 
mas holidays with Dick, but he was 
not strong yet, and sundry expensive 
extras were provided for him out of 
her pocket. That was not much : but 
a heavier expense had fallen upon her : 
for she had repaid Mr. Wheatley the 
two hundred pounds borrowed by 
Sara. Sara had disclosed to her aunt 
the fact of borrowing it, and in her 
pride Miss Bettina had made a saerL 


OSWALD CRAY. 


309 


fice and repaid the sum. She had 
none left to bestow on Mark ; there 
was clearly no help to be had from 
her. 

And Caroline ? You can take a 
look at her as she sat in the sun, 
which was shining into the room that 
bright day in early April. Perhaps 
you remember a remark Dr. Davenal 
once made — that Caroline was not 
one, as ho believed, to bear well the 
adversities of life. Dr. Davenal was 
quite right : neither physically nor 
mentally did they agree with poor 
Caroline, 

I don’t know whether anybody gets 
ill at once under a great shock. Caro- 
line had not. When it fell upon her, 
she was too stunned, too entirely sur- 
prised, to be any thing but bewildered. 
It may be questioned if a change so 
sudden — from seemingly assured pros- 
perity, to hiding and disgrace and 
poverty — ever befel one. You may 
feel inclined to question it in this in- 
stance ; nevertheless, I repeat that I 
am telling you the .simple truth. The 
reaction has come now, and Caroline 
Cray gave way sadly. Her cough, 
that Dick remarked upon had got 
well ; but she would lie back in her 
chair all day, and it seemed next to 
impossible to get her out of it. 

But if the body was at rest, the 
mind was only the more active. Caro- 
line’s hours, in point of fact, were 
pretty equally divided between out- 
ward complaining and inward lamen- 
tation. Such lamentation is nearly 
always rebellious, and so was hers. 
The blow had been so complete ; the 
change was so very great ! All that 
pomp and vanity, all the luxuries, the 
carelessness, the pleasure attendant 
on that one past sunshiny wave in 
life’s current, to have given place to 
this ! Perhaps the worst mortification, 
looking back, ^vas that the play seemed 
to have been so unreal : as if they had 
no right to indulge in it, were such 
fools to hav^ embarked in it, and 
worse than fools to have believed in 
it. Mortified, fretful, miserable, Caro- 
line Cray seemed to live but in re- 
pining and repentance. Mark was 


different. He neither repined nor 
repented : he was always restless, 
always expecting something to turn 
up ; and he would stalk up and down 
the room, giving tongue to all sorts 
of wild visions of what he would do., 
were he but clear of the world and 
the Great Wheal Bang. 

As he was doing now. While Caro- 
line sat listless and inert in her chair, 
Mark was indulging a dream of the 
future, sanguine as a child. He had 
lately taken to consult the newspapers, 
and one tempting advertisement in 
particular had that morning attracted 
him. Mark Cray was acquiring that 
experience which comes inevitably in 
a life of vicissitude : he had yet to 
learn how many of these advertise- 
ments are but traps for the unwary ; 
how next to impossible it is to be the 
one successful applicant, if they are 
genuine. But ever and anon Mark’s 
dream was brought unpleasantly to a 
break, as the recollection intruded it- 
self that he was not a free man. 

You see, Carine, if I were but 
clear of that resentful company, there 
are a hundred good things to be picked 
up. I’m sure there’s a dozen at least' 
ill the paper every day. That’s a 
splendid thing, I know, that one ad- 
vertisement of this morning ; any fel- 
Imt securing that ” 

“^Vhere’s the use of talking of it?” 
interrupted Carine. It all comes to 
nothing. You know you are not 
clear of the company.” 

She spoke in a fretful, peevish tone. 
Just at first, Mark’s sanguine visions 
of rising again more gloriously than 
ever, like a phoenix from its ashes, 
had somewhat infected her, but she 
was learning what they were worth : 
as she had just said, '‘it all came to 
nothing.” Utterly weary was her 
spirit. Hope deferred maketh the 
heart sick ; but hope destroyed — and 
it had come to that with Caroline 
Cray — maketh it die. 

Physical privation tells terribly on 
the mind as well as the body, and it 
was telling upon her. They were 
next door to starving. What made it 
worse for Caroline was, that hers was 


310 


OSWALD CRAY. 


a constitutioii requiring the best of 
nourishment. The Daveuals were a 
healthy family, but there had been a 
taint in her mother’s blood. These 
physical privations would alone have 
made Caroline fretful : and she could 
not help it. 

I shall be clear of it soon,” said 
Mark. 

“ But how ?” 

Even sanguine Mark could not de- 
tail the precise means by which the 
emancipation was to be accomplished. 
“ Oh, somehow,” said he, in his care- 
less way. “ The company must wind 
itself up.” 

“Why can’t you apply to Os- 
wald ?” 

He shook his head very decisively. 

I can’t face him. And if I did, he’d 
not assist me. He has lost too much, 
and is sure to bear malice.” 

‘'Are we to go on like this for- 
ever ?” 

“I hope we shan’t go on so for a 
month. I wish you’d not talk so, 
Caroline ?” 

“ How am I to, talk ? You have 
been saying the same all along.” 

“ Well, it’s no good your looking 
©n the dark side of things. You are 
always doing it, now.” 

Caroline was silent for a few mo- 
ments, when she suddenly lifted up 
her hands, and her voice broke into a 
passionate wail. 

“ Oh, if that money had but been 
settled on me, as Uncle Richard 
wished ! This must be a judgment 
upon us for defying his last com- 
mands.” 

“ Rubbish I” said Mark. 

‘‘Are we to go out in the street 
and beg ?” she plaintively asked. 

“Are you going to be a child ? 
One must get a rub or two in passing 
through life, Caroline. Barker has 
been down upon his beam ends five or 
six times, just as much as we are, but 
it has always come right again.” 

She relapsed into a fit of weeping ; 
half her hours, a-bed and up, were so 
spent. Mark had ceased either to 
soothe or reproach : he had tried both. 


but ineffectually ; and now was fain 
to let her weep, simply because ho 
was helpless to prevent it. Mark 
Cray could not be unkind ; he was 
not that ; but he was hardly the right 
sort of husband for adversity. Shal- 
low-minded, shallow^ -hearted, pos- 
sessed of no depth of feeling, there 
seemed something wanting in him 
now^ He did his best to cheer his 
wife ; but the result was not satis- 
factory. 

The fits of weeping would some- 
times go on to hysterics ; sometimes 
stopped just short of it : as this one 
stopped. Caroline suddenly roused 
herself, and looked round wearily at 
the mantle-piece, as if there were a 
time-piece there, perhaps in moment- 
ary forgetfulness. Grosvenor Place 
had been rich in such ; elegant bijous, 
worth no end of money. 

“ I wish Sara would come !” 

“ Sara ?” repeated Mark, halting in 
his monotonous promenade. 

“ I wrote her to come.” 

She spoke the words half defiantly. 
Sara, in consequence of the discovery 
of Master Dick Davenal, had come to 
see them once ; but she was not en- 
couraged to repeat the visit. Mark 
especially was against it. “ If wo 
have them coming here, we may get 
dropped upon,” he said to his wife ; 
“ it will never do.” But poor Caro- 
line, wearied out with the wretched 
loneliness that seemed to continue 
month after month, and to have no 
end, had at length written to her 
cousin. 

“ Why did you not tell me, Caro- 
line ?” 

“You might have forbade me.” 

“ It’s just what I should have done. 
We don’t want her here. What good 
will she do ?” 

“ What good will any thing in the 
world do ? I wish I was out of it I” 

Mark Cray began to ask himself 
the question whether the expected 
visit could be stopped \P)\v. He had 
an intense dislike to meet Sara Dave- 
nal : we all shrink from meeting those 
whom we have injured directly or in- 


OSWALD CRAY. 


directly. But the question was set at 
rest by Sara’s entrance, and Mark, 
after a short greeting, disappeared. 

All Caroline did for the first quar- 
ter of an hour was to sob hysterically. 
Sara, in slighter mourning now, un- 
fastened the white crape strings of 
her straw bonnet, and sat over her in 
dismay, her sweet face full of com- 
passion at the change she saw. 

'‘I want to know how it is all to 
end,” were the first distinct words 
Caroline uttered. “ Am I to stop 
here till I die ?” 

A question difficult for Sara to 
answer. ‘^Is Mark doing nothing ?” 
she asked. 

He is doing nothing. He can’t 
do any thing while that business of the 
Wheal Bang hangs over him. If that 
were settled, there are fifty things he 
might get into. And if it can’t be 
settled, we may both of us as well 
die at once as be famished to death, 
for that’s what it would come to. 
Those poor creatures that shut them- 
selves up with the fumes of charcoal 
are not so much to blame after all.” 

Caroline I” 

Well, I mean it,” returned Caro- 
line, a sullen tone beginning to mingle 
with her sobs. It is all very well 
for you to exclaim ^ Caroline I’ as if I 
were mad ; but you don’t know what 
sorrow is. Nobody does until pov- 
erty comes.” 

Sara thought that there were worse 
sorrows to be borne in the world than 
poverty. And she was right : bad as 
poverty, to those unaccustomed to it, 
undoubtedly is. What can I do for 
you ?” she gently asked. 

Here we are, buried alive, and 
nobody comes near us ! Sara, if you 
only knew how I yearn for a home 
face ! — how I lie and cry for it ?” 

Mark — and you also — said I must 
not come, lest it might lead to dis- 
covery.” 

‘‘ Neither must you, I suppose. At 
least, not often. But sometimes I 
think it would be well if di^overy 
happened. There ’d be an end to this 
uncertainty, at a^y rate. WhaL is 


311 

Mark to do, if the thing can’t get 
settled ?” 

She asked the question in strange 
earnestness, and Sara was struck with 
the yearning beauty of the lifted face, 
of the wasting form. The violet eyes 
were larger than of yore, the cheeks 
were of a delicate crimson, and the 
hands were long and white and thin. 

“ But can it not get settled ?” re- 
turned Sara. ^ 

“We have nothing to eat, you know. 
That is, there’s bread, and such like ; 
but I can’t eat it. Mark will dine on 
bread-and-cheese, or a thick slice of 
bread-and-butter ; and he really does 
not seem to mind ; but I can’t. Oh, 
Sara ! if I could but have a good 
dinner !” 

Sara caught up her breath. What 
comfort could she give ? 

“ Sometimes, when I am sick with 
hunger, I lie and imagine the dinners 
we used to sit down to in Grosvenor 
Place. I imagine it, you know ; that 
they are before me now, and I am eat- 
ing them. Turkey and bread-sauce, 
or salmon and Jobster sauce — it’s 
nearly always substantial things I 
think of, I suppose because of my 
hunger — and 1 quite seem to taste 
them ; to eat through a whole plate- 
ful. Sara, it is true.” 

Sara Da venal had heard the doctor 
speak of some kinds of hunger as a 
disease, and could 'only suppose this 
must be one. “ I wish — I wish I 
could help 3^ou !” she murmured. 

You can’t, I know. You have it 
not in your power, and Aunt, Bettina 
won’t, she’s implacable. I did not 
send for you to ask it. But, Sara, 
there’s Oswald Cray. If 3^ou would 
ask him, perhaps he might do some- 
thing for Mark.” 

The words startled her. 

“Ask Oswald Cray !” 

“I think if he would listen to any 
one, it is you. I don’t forget how 
fond he used to be of you in the days 
gone by. Indeed, I got to think — 
but I was wrong, I suppose, so let it 
pass. Oh, Sara, 3"0u’ll ask him for 
my sake ? Don’t abandon us quite 


312 


OSWALD CRAY. 


I think he might help Mark out of 
this difficulty. Perhaps he might see 
the company, and get them to be 
friendly with Mark ; or perhaps he’d 
pay a few of Mark’s pressing debts. 
It might not take much money.” 

“ But why cannot Mark ask him ?” 

He won’t. Mark would rather it 
came to the charcoal — not that any 
thing of that sort would ever be 
in his line^than apply to Oswald. 
There was some trouble between them 
about the money Oswald put into the 
mine, and Mark has kept away from 
him since. That is just why I have 
sent for you. Mark will not apply to 
Oswald ; no, not if it were to save 
him from prison ; and I don’t feel 
well enough to go, and my bonnet’s 
shabby. Oh, Sara, when a recollec- 
tion comes over me — and it is always 
coming — of the nice clothes 1 had and 
how foolishly they were abandoned, I 
feel fit to go mad. Any way, unless 
a change takes place, I shan’t want 
clothes long. Sara, surely you will 
do for us so trifling a thing as this !” 

To pursue the interview would be 
waste of time. When Sara Davenal 
quitted her cousin, it was with a 
given promise to see Oswald Cray. 
Very much indeed did she shrink 
from it : as much as she had shrunk 
from those interviews with Mr. Alfred 
King : but she saw no other means to 
.help them ; and in truth she did not 
anticipate much would come of this. 

Money seemed to be wanted every- 
where. Miss Bettina complained sadly 
of shortness : the money repaid to 
Mr. Wheatley had crippled her : and 
Captain Davenal’s letters to Sara 
dwelt on his embarrassments. They 
told her privately how “hard up” he 
was, and, in his random meaningless 
way, said he should have to run away 
to Australia and dig for gold, unless 
some dropped shortly from the clouds. 
Captain Davenal’s wife, as it turned 
out, was only an heiress in prospec- 
tive ; but he appeared excessively fond 
of her, anxious to supply her with 
every luxury : and we all know that 
a married captain’s pay, without other 


means, does not accord with luxuries 
in India. 

Bis wife! Over and over again 
Sara asked herself how it was possible 
Edward could have married her, how 
he could speak of her in the fond maU' 
ner that he did, if there really existed 
that impediment. All the trouble and 
the care seemed to fall upon herself, 
individually ; upon her own inmost 
heart. So long as there existed a 
grain of doubt, she could not speak 
of this to Edward ; and besides, the 
letter might fall into the hands of his 
young wife. 

Personally Sara had not been an- 
noyed by Catherine Wentworth. Oc- 
casionally through the winter and 
spring she had seen this young wo- 
man hovering outside, waiting for 
Neal ; twice she had come boldly to 
the house, knocked, and asked for 
him. Miss Bettina’s keen eyes had 
seen her once. “ Is it one of your 
nieces, Neal ?” she graciously asked ; 
“ pray invite her in. ” “ Oh, no, ma’am, 
she is no relative of mine,” returned 
Neal, with pointed emphasis. Sara’s 
breath had quickened at the colloquy : 
but it ended there. She was sur- 
prised at this immunity from personal 
annoyance, and wondered how long it 
would be hers. 

It was a coincidence rather remark- 
able that Oswald Cray should be at 
the door when Sara returned home 
from the visit to Caroline. About 
once in three months he made a call 
of politeness on Miss Davenal. Sara 
met him turning away : Miss Davenal 
was out and he had left his card. He 
would have passed her after shaking 
hands ; his visit was not to her ; but 
Sara detained him ; her cheeks in a 
glow at having to do it. 

“ It is very strange,” she exclaimed. 
“ I was but now thinking how I could 
best get to see you. Do you mind 
coming in with me for five minutes ?” 

He returned with her, perhaps all 
too willingly : a great nffiny of us are 
tempted to stray from the strict line 
of duty marked out in our own minds. 
Sara led the wiiy to the drawing- 


OSWALD CRAY. 


313 


room, and told him where she had 
been and what Caroline said. The 
declining sun — for the afternoon was 
drawing towards its close — fell on 
Oswald as he sat listening to her. It 
was the same noble face that she had 
so loved to look upon ; calm, still, 
good; but somehow all its youth 
seemed to have passed away. The 
eyes had a look of habitual sadness ; 
some silver threads mingled with the 
dark chesnut hair. She simply re- 
peated Mrs. Cray^s words, almost as 
a child repeats a lesson ; throwing no 
persuasive tone, no pleading of her 
owui into it, for she felt that she had 
no right to do so. 

Did Mark Cray wish you to ask 
me this he inquired, as she ceased 
the tale. 

‘‘Not Mark. Only Caroline. By 
what she said, I fancy Mark Cray 
feels — feels ashamed to ask you any 
thing.’’ 

“ And he well may,” answered Os- 
wald, the old look of pride unpleas- 
ingly crossing his face. “I could 
have borne almost any thing from 
Mark better than deliberate deceit. 
I cannot — no, I cannot forgive it.” 

Neither spoke for a few moments. 
Sara had untied her bonnet strings, 
and sat with her face a little bent ; 
the eyes raised straight to him in 
their simple trust. He had one glove 
off ; it was a black one ; and he was 
gently swaying it as his elbow rested 
on the arm of the chair. 

“ I cannot quite understand what 
it is that Mrs. Cray would ask me. 
She cannot seriously expect that 1 
should pay Mark’s debts. His per- 
sonal debts alone would take I im- 
agine, a far deeper purse than mine. 
I am but making my way upwards, 
and Mark has taken care to put me 
back to an extent I shall not readily 
recover. Pay Marcus Cray’s debts I 
It is not within my power, any more 
than it would be witliin my will.” 

Sara was silent : save for a glance, 
which plainly said how foolish she 
herself had thought the demand. 

“ I very much fear that Mark Cray 
is one of those men who want others to 


‘pay their debts’ throughout life,” he 
resumed. “There are such. Were 
he free to-morrow, he would be em- 
barrassed again in a year. To assist 
such men is no charity.” 

“Do you think any thing can be 
done to clear him of the company ?” 

“Not while he keeps aloof. Mark 
himself must know it to be impos- 
sible ; or ought to know it. The only 
chance for their affairs to T)e wound 
up, is for him and Barker to come 
forward.” 

“Yes, I thought so,” she answered. 
“But — Caroline tells me — they are 
near upon starving 1” 

“ More shame to Mark !” exclaimed 
Oswald. “ I cannot describe to you 
how this affair has pained me. Mark 
is my father’s son, and his disgrace 
seems to be reflected upon me. His 
hiding himself is the worst part of it 
all. While he does so, he is only pro- 
longing the trouble and the ill. Be- 
lieve me, it would not be a kindness 
to help Mark. Let him come forward 
as a man and a gentleman ought; 
that would be the best help to him.” 

Sara felt that he was right : but 
she felt also that Mark would not 
come forw^ard ; and what was to be 
the ending ? 

“ They are living in only one roori: : 
it is at — ” 

“ Don’t tell it me !” impulsively in- 
terrupted Oswald, something like an- 
ger in his tone. “ I would not for the 
world be made cognizant of Mark 
Cray’s hiding-place. People have 
come to me for it times and again ; 
and I am thankful to assure them in 
all truth that I know it not.” 

He rose, as if wishing to put an end 
to the subject, and held out his hand 
to Sara. 

“ At least you will forgive me for 
presuming to trouble you so far,” she 
murmured. “ I could not help it ; Car- 
oline besought me very piteously.” 

His dark blue eyes so earnestly bent 
on her, gave sufficient answer, even 
without the pressure of the hand and 
the tender tone of the low words. 

“ You should not speak of it in 
that light. If you knew how great a 


314 


OSWALD CRAY. 


pleasure it is to me for you to ask me 
any thing ! I had almost said — it is 
the only one left me in my matter-of- 
fact, working life. You and I have 
none too much of such j it seems to 
me that we both have to suffer for the 
wrong-doing of others.” 

Miss Davenal met him at the room 
door. She had just come in. Sara, 
perhaps as an apology for entertaining 
Mr. Oswald Cray all by herself, men- 
tioned her visit to Caroline, and the 
message she had been charged with 
to Oswald. Miss Davenal lifted her 
hands in haughty rebuke. It was 
very evident that her opinion of Mark 
/ and his affairs were more severe than 
that of Oswald. 

“ Find money to put Mark Cray 
straight I Sara had the face to ask 
you that, Mr. Oswald Cray ! I won- 
der what the world is coming to 
Did she think you had not suffered 
enough by him already ?” 

‘‘ Aunt ! aunt ! It was Caroline. 
If you could but see her !” 

‘"/have suffered ; suffered in many 
ways,” continued the angry lady, 
utterly unmindful of the pleading in- 
terruption. Had Mark Cray and 
his wife been as well behaved as they 
have been ill, I could not have helped 
them. My money has been drained 
from me, Mr. Oswald Cray. Sara 
had two hundred of it to repay Mr. 
Wheatley a sum borrowed from him. 
Heaven knows why she borrowed the 
money, or what she did with it. I 
don’t.” 

He looked involuntarily at Sara. 
She stood with drooping eyelids, and 
her face changed to pain. Yes, bolrh 
— all — had to suffer for the wrong- 
doing of others. 


CHAPTER XLYIL 

SOMETHING “ TURNED UP” AT LAST I 


that of yesterday. The living figures 
are the same : Mark, his wife, and 
Sara Davenal ; but the contrast lay in 
the expression, in the tone of feeling. 
Yesterday it had been nothing but 
gloom, depression, almost despair ; 
to-day it was all hope and hilarity. 
The cloud bad gone from the faces of 
Mark and his wife to give place to 
almost triumphal gayety. On Sara’s 
there was a look of pleasure, too, min- 
gled with perplexity, as if she would 
rejoice with them, but as yet scarcely 
understood what there was to re- 
joice at. 

Poor Mark Cray ! The very 
slightest straw of expectancy was 
sufficient to send his sanguine spirit 
into the clouds. All this change had 
been wrought by a letter from Barker, 
which the eleven o’clock post had 
brought. Barker, who was another 
of Mark’s stamp, had suddenly dis- 
covered, or thought he had discovered, 
that an English doctor was wanted in 
Honfleur. He wrote over to Mark, 
strongly recommending him to come 
and establish himself, and to lose no 
time, lest the opening should be 
snapped up. “ There’s a goodish 
many English, here,” said the letter, 
“and not the ghost of an English 
doctor. If an English fellow gets ill 
he must die, unless he chooses to call 
in a French surgeon, and the chances 
are lieHl bleed him to death. If you’ll 
believe me, they bled a young Eng- 
lish lady this wej^k for measles I She 
seemed ill, and her friends called in a 
Monsieur Somebody, with a name as 
.unpronounceable as that mine of ours, 
and he looked at her, and asked a few 
questions, said he thought she Avas 
sickening for some disorder or other, 
aqd therefore he’d bleed her. Well, 
Iffi did bleed her, and ordered her 
some drink, called tissan, or some 
such name — I always shirked my 
French at school — which it’s my be- 
lief is made of nothing but sugar and 
water. Bleeding for measles ! The 
English say to me : ‘ What a boon it 
would be if we had a countryman 
established here as doctor !’ So 
Mark, old fellow, I’ve thought of 


You might have taken a picture of 
the group in Mark Cray’s room to- 
day, if only by way of contrast to 


OSWALD CRAY. 


315 


you ; and my advice to you is, come 
and try it, until something better 
turns up. I^m off to Paris shortly, 
but V\l stop here and welcome you 
first, if you decide to come. I know 
you hate your profession, and so do I, 
or I might try the opening myself; 
but if you doAt mind taking it up as 
a temporary thing, I think you may 
manage to find enough practice to get 
along with. Living^s cheap over 
here, and the scenery’s lovely, though 
the town isn’t much. Havre is only 
twenty minutes’ distance by steamer; 
it’s over the water — the manche, as 
they call it ; and Harfleur lies by its 
side, nearer to us still. We have got 
an English church, you can tell Mrs. 
Cray, if she’s particular upon the 
point ; we had a splendid sermon last 
Sunday, preached by a stranger. Al- 
together, it seems to me to be worth 
your thinking of under present cir- 
cumstances, and when the horizon has 
cleared a little, you can leave the 
place as readily as you come to it.” 

And this was the golden bait that 
had laid tempting hold on Mark. 
Perhaps to a man under his present 
circumstances,” as Mr. Barker put it, 
it did look favorable. Estimating 
things by comparison, it looked more 
than well. That one present room he 
was in, the dinnerless days, the blue 
spectacles, and all the rest of the little 
disagreeables you have heard hints of, 
were things to be flown from with the 
fleetest wings, if they could be ex- 
changed for the position of a flourish- 
ing doctor in Honfleur. Mark was 
on his high horse again, and his wife 
seemed to have thrown off her sorrow 
and her ailments. 

The first consideration was money. 
This desirable place could not^be 
reached without some. Even san- 
guine Mark allowed that. Just a 
little, to allow of their getting there, 
and a pound or so to pay for lodgings, 
and carry them on until his patients 
came in. He and his wife were deep 
in the difficulties of the matter when 
Sara interrupted them. She had 
come to tell Caroline of her ill-suc- 
cess with Oswald Cray. 


But Caroline was in no mood to 
listen to aught that savored of non- 
success, and Sara’s news was over- 
whelmed with the other. Barker’s 
letter was read to her, and Mark en- 
larged upon it in his sanguine strain. 

I knew something would turn 
up,” said he. ^‘Barker’s a right good 
fellow not to keep it himself. Those 
continental towns are charming, if 
you can put up with the sameness : 
of course they get a little same after a 
time. Not all of them, though. We 
stopped three months in Boulogne 
once, before my father’s death, and 
were sorry to come away from it. 
Only think how this will set Carine 
up, after all the late bother.” 

fear Honfleur is a small place to 
support a medical man,” observed 
Sara, who could look at the proposal 
more dispassionately than the other 
two. 

It’s a lovely place,” fired Mark. 
‘^Barker says so. It’s renowned in 
history. If they are not places of 
note, I’d like to know what are. His- 
tory tells us that ! Why ! it was 
from Harfleur that the children of one 
of the kings set sail and were over- 
taken by*a storm and drowned, and 
the poor old father never was seen to 
smile more. I’m sure I remember 
having to learn that in my history. 
Honfleur is a small place, indeed I 
Not support a doctor ! You must be 
saying it for a purpose, Sara !” 

Well, Mark, I don’t think it is 
large ; but what I meant was, not 
large enough to support an English 
doctor. Are there enough English 
living there to do that ?” 

“ Of course there are,” returned 
Mark, whose sanguine mood resented 
nothing more than a check. Would 
Barker -say there was an opening if 
there wasn’t ?” 

She could have retorted that Barker 
had no more judgment than Mark ; 
but it was utterly useless, and she 
held her tongue. Besides, she did 
hope that Mark might pick up some 
practice, and any change seemed an 
improvement upon the present state 
of things. 


316 


OSWALD CRAY. 


How strangely things come 
about exclaimed Caroline. “ Over 
and over again has Mark declared he 
would never resume his profession. 
And now he is longing for it.’^ 

“But only as a stop-gap,” returned 
Mark, with quick eagerness. “ I 
hate the profession, and l^d not spend 
my life in it if I could do any thing 
better. Oh, it won’t take much trou- 
ble just to doctor those Honfleur peo- 
ple, while something else is turning 
up. Nothing should stop me now 
from going to Honfleur.” 

Yery good. Perhaps we ourselves 
might have decided the same in 
Mark’s place. But still there were 
the necessary means. What of them ? 
Caroline suggested Oswald Cray, and 
once more wished Sara to apply to 
him. 

Remembering her mission of the 
previous afternoon, and how it had 
failed, Sara refused quietly and kindly, 
but it angered Caroline. 

“ Listen,” said Sara, interrupting a 
reproach that took various phases ; 
“ I am quite sure that any application 
to Mr. Oswald Cray from a stranger 
would be useless. I think — I think 
it must be done by Mark in person. 
I don’t know that Mark would suc- 
ceed, but I feel sure it is the only 
chance. I think he is vexed that 
Mark has never been to him.” 

“ I dare say he is I” returned Mark 
resentfully. “ Where was the good 
of my going? He’d only blow me 
up.” 

“ I’ll go,” said Caroline, in a spirit of 
defiance, for she thought her cousin 
was using her very ill. “ I’ll go. I’d 
rather go I and Oswald shall see how 
shabby my bonnet is, and I hope he 
will feel grieved at it I” 

She kept her resolution. At the 
dusk of evening, not before, Caroline 
Cray took her way to Parliament 
Street, her step quick, her mood defi- 
ant still ; not defiant against Oswald 
in particular, but against the whole 
would save herself and Mark. 

But when she came in view of the 
house, she slackened her pace, going 
on slowly and cautiously, as one who 


wishes to reconnoitre the ground be- 
forehand. What was she afraid of ? 
Of meeting any of the wrathful share- 
holders of the Great Wheal Bang ? 
If so, it was surely a singular coin- 
cidence that one of them should at 
that very moment be at Oswald Cray’s 
door. 

He was being shown out by a lady 
in an inverted bonnet, if the term 
may be held applicable — brim down- 
wards, crown upwards. Caroline 
recognized him at once as a Major 
Pratt, rather an extensive shareholder. 
Some acquaintanceship had sprung 
up between him and Mark, and the 
Major had dined twice in Grosvenor 
Place. Mrs. Cray shrank into the 
shade, and drew her veil tighter over 
her face. He passed without seeing 
her, and Mrs. Benn, after taking a 
look out up and down the street, gave 
the door a bang after him. 

Suffering a few moments to elapse, 
Caroline went to the door and knocked 
at it. Mrs. Benn had just reached 
her kitchen, and it went very much 
against the grain of that amiable 
lady’s temper to have to go up again. 
Flinging open the door, she con- 
fronted the applicant, opposition 
written in every line of her face, in 
every movement of her working arms, 
bared to the elbow. 

“ I want to see Mr. Oswald Cray.” 

“You want to see Mr. Oswald 
Cray I” repeated Mrs. Benn, the tight 
and disguising veil completing her 
ire. “Well, that’s modest I When 
folks come here they ask if they can 
see him — and that’s pretty bold for 
young women. What might you 
want, pray ?” 

“ I want angrily returned 

Caroline. “Is he at home? If so, 
show me into his presence.” 

Something in the refinement of the 
voice, in its tone of command, struck 
on the ear of Mrs. Benn. But she 
was at warfare with the world that 
evening, and her prejudices were un- 
conquerable. 

“ I don’t know ' about that. The 
other night a lady walked herself here 
as bold as could be, and ^said she 




OSWALD CRAY. 317 


wanted to see Mr. Oswald Cray ; and 
when I let her go in, it turned out 
that she had got some smuggled 
cambric handkerchiefs to sell, and she 
kept worriting of him to buy for five- 
and-twenty minutes. ‘ Mrs. Benn,^ 
says he to me afterwards in his quiet 
way, ' I don’t want them sort of peo- 
ple showed in to me.’ But how be I 

to know one sort from Oh, so it is 

you, is it, Joe Benn ? I wonder you 
come home at all, I do ! You have 
been two mortal half hours gone, and 
nothing but visitors tramping in and 
out ! Perhaps you’ll attend to ’em.” 

Caroline turned instinctively to the 
respectable-looking man who had ap- 
proached the door. 

“ I wish to see Mr. Oswald Cray. 
My business is of importance.” 

Certainly, ma’am. Is Mr. Os- 
wald Cray alone ?” he asked of his 
wife. 

Yes, he is alone. And I should 
think he’d like to remain alone, if only 
for a moment’s peace and quiet. He 
can’t get no rest at his work, any 
more than I can at mine.” 

Mrs. Cray stood before Oswald 
with her veil thrown back, her face 
working with emotion, her hands 
clasped. The table was between 
them. Benn had closed the door after 
showing her in, and Oswald, who was 
busy over some plans, rose and stared 
in very astonishment. She gave a 
summary of her business in a rapid, 
breathless manner, as if fearing there 
would be no time left to tell it in. 
Mark had at length an opening of 
escape from the present misery, if he 
could be only helped to embrace it. 
A surgeon was w^anted at Honfleur, 
and the place was offered to him. 

Oswald pressed her to a chair, sat 
down, and questioned her. 

“ Why does not Mark come forward 
and show himself ?” he presently 
asked. 

Come forward and show himself I” 
she repeated. “ What, and get put 
into prison ?” 

He must come, sooner or late«» 
He cannot remain a proscribed man 
all his life. What end has he in view 


by remaining concealed ? What does 
he promise himself by it ?” 

“ I don’t know.” 

‘‘But Mark ought to know. He 
must be aware that there’s an impera- 
tive necessity for his coming forward ; 
that it is a thing there is no escaping. 
What does he wait for ?” 

“ He says he wants the storm to 
blow over first.” 

“ The storm will not blow over. 
Were Mark to hide himself for ten 
years, and then appear, it would only 
raise itself again. The very best 
thing that he can do is to appear and 
face it.”. 

“ Theh he never will. At least, 
not yet a while. And, Oswald, I don’t 
think you are a brother if you can 
wish him to do it. But I did not 
come here to discuss she added. 

“ I came to ask if you would lend me 
— me, not Mark — the trifle necessary 
to take us over the water. I will pay 
you back again if I have to save it up 
by sixpences.” 

She betrayed more restlessness of 
manner than Oswald had ever ob- 
served. Since iier entrance she had 
been incessantly taking off and put- 
ting on the left-hand glove. He 
thought hper changed. Her face looked 
worn, her eyes anxious. 

“ It would be doing you no kind- 
ness, Mrs. Cray. Believe me, the 
only plan open to Mark is to come 
forward and meet the company. His 
stopping away makes things worse. 
Major Pratt was here just before you 
came in, asking if I could give him 
news of Mark. I am tempted to wish 
often that I had no connection with 
him. Tell him to face this.” 

“ I will not tell him,” she ansiji^ered, 
her cheeks crimson, her violet-blue 
eyes shining with a purple light. 
“ If you will not advance me these 
poor few pounds that I plead for to 
you, there’ll be nothing for us but to 
lie down and die. I have not” — she 
paused, struggling with her emotion — 
“ I have not had a proper meal these 
three months ; I feel often sick with 
want. Sometimes I wish I was with 
Uncle Richard.” 


318 


OSWALD CRAY. 


Oswald hesitated, whether to ring 
at once for refreshment or to w’ait 
until her emotion had spent itself, 
lie compassionated her with his whole 
heart. 

“ What would ten or twenty pounds 
be to you she resumed. Ten 
might take us there ; twenty would 
seem like a fortune. WonH you give 
us a chance of life 

It is not the money I think of; it 
is not indeed, Mrs. Cray. But Mark 
ought not to go to Honfleur while 
these clouds are hanging over him.” 

^^Let me have the money,” she 
pleaded ; let me have it. I don^t 
want you to give it me to-night, only 
to promise it to me. IJncle Richard 
would have done as much for you.” 

What was he to do ? What would 
you have done, my reader ? Upright, 
honorable, just though he was, he did 
not resist those tearful eyes, those 
pleading hands, and he promised her 
the ftioney that would carry Mark 
Cray farther and farther away from 
his creditors. 

“ And now what will you take ?” 
he asked, ringing the bell. 

“ Nothing. I don^t think I am as 
strong as I was ; and in moments of 
excitement, I feel unable tojbouch bit 
or drop. Wine ? No, I am not 
strong, I say ; I am not used to wine 
now ; only half a glass of it, and I 
should hardly walk home.” 

He did not intend that she should 
walk home, he told her he would 
send her in a better way than that; 
and he induced her to take a very 
little wine. Then he gave her his 
arm down-stairs. 

Mrs. Benn met them in the hall. 
Caroline hastily drew her veil over 
her face, but not before the woman 
had caught a glimpse of her features. 
Oswald let himself out at the door, 
and shut it after him, and Mrs. Benn 
backed against the wall to recover 
her amazement. 

Mrs. Cray I — his brother’s wife I 
— them that are in hiding I And the 
last time she was here it was in a 
coach and four, as may be said, with 
her feathers in her bonnet and her 


satins on her back ! What a world 
this is for change — and work I Yes, 
she have just gone out, that there 
lady, Joe Benn, and the master with 
her. And you not up to open the 
door 1” 

^ 

CHAPTER XLYIIL 

A NEW HOME. 

It was an exquisite scene ; one of 
the very prettiest in Normandie. The 
old town with its aged and irregular 
buildings rising one over the other like 
hanging gardens, but^to a mountain- 
ous height ; the large expanse of water, 
clear as a sheet of glass, bright with 
the early sun, stretching out under- 
neath as far as the eye could see ; the 
hills on the right, with their clustering 
trees and their winding road, leading 
to the nestling houses in the village of 
St. Sauveur; Harfleur opposite, stand- 
ing as a back-ground to the plain of 
crystal, its old castle (or what looks 
like one) conspicuous, its gentle 
mounts green and picturesque ; Havre 
lying next it almost side by side, with 
its immensity of buildings and its long 
harbor that you can see ; — these were 
what may be called the prominent 
parts of the canvas, but you, were you 
looking at it, might find the minuter 
points of the filling-in even more in- 
teresting. The whole made a magnifi- 
cent tableau, which, once seen, must 
rest upon the charmed mind forever. 

The Hotel du Cheval Blanc, situated 
at one end of the town, was perhaps 
the best spot in all Honfleur for ad- 
miring this panorama ; unless, indeed, 
you mounted the heights above the 
town. Standing in one of the end 
rooms of this hotel on the second floor, 
whose windows commanded two sides 
of view, the town and the water, was 
a gentleman whom you have met be- 
fore. You could not have mistaken 
it for any thing but a French room, 
with its bare floor, its tasty curtains, 
and its white-covered chairs. The 
tables had marble tops, hard and ugly, 


OSWALD CRAY. 


319 


but the piano opposite to the fire-place 
was of tolerable tone. 

It was the best of the two sitting- 
rooms in the hotel ; better than the 
one on the first floor underneath, be- 
cause these windows were low and 
cheerful, and those were high and 
grim. This room and a chamber into 
which it opened (whose intervening 
door could never be got to shut, and 
if shut couldn’t be got to open) looked 
right over to Harfleur. For the mat- 
ter of that, the room opened into two 
chambers, but the one was bolted up 
from it just now, and we have nothing 
to do with it. Like most French 
rooms, it seemed made up of doors 
and windows. 

The gentleman standing at the win- 
dow was Mark Cray. Resident at 
Honfleur more than a month now, this 
was the first time he had been called 
in to see a patient. A traveller had 
been taken ill at the Cheval Blanc in 
the middle of the night, had asked if 
there was an English doctor in the 
place, and Mark was summoned. 

It was a rather serious case, and 
Mark had not left him yet. The door 
between the rooms was open, but Mark 
kept as still as a mouse ; for the pa- 
tient, he hoped, was dropping into a 
dose. Mark had occupation enough, 
looking out on the busy scene. It was 
high tide, and the harbor, close on 
which the hotel was built, was alive 
with bustle. Fishing boats ^vere 
making ready to go out ; fishing boats 
were tiding in, bearing their night’s 
haul. The short. pier underneath had 
quite a crowd on it for that early hour ; 
women with shrill tongues, men with 
gruff ones, who were waiting to tow 
in a merchant vessel drawing near ; 
idlers only looking on — their babel of 
voices came right up to Mark, and had 
he been rather more familiar with the 
Korman tongue, he might have known 
what all the gabbling was about. A 
quiet wedding-party, three men and 
three women, were taking a walk on 
the pier, two and two, after the per- 
formance of the early ceremony ; or 
perhaps it had been performed the 
previous day, and this one was the 


continuance of the holiday — one never 
knows ; the gala caps on the women’s 
heads flapping out their extraordinary 
wings, such caps as we may see in 
pictures : a sober, middle-aged, well- 
conducted wedding-party of humble 
life. They probably came, Mark 
thought, from some few miles inland, 
where the water and the boats ^ere 
not every-day objects, as at Honfleur, 
for their interest in these seemed in- 
tense. Every minute there was some- 
thing new, as is sure to be the case 
with a full tide at early morning; 
now, an entanglement of boats at the 
entrance of the harbor ; now, the 
snapping of a cord and deafening noise 
in consequence ; and now a flat barge, 
heavily laden, went rounding off to the 
Seine, to toil up between its green 
banks as far as Rouen. 

Suddenly, a noise as of the waters 
being cut through arose, and Mark, 
who was watching the toiling barge, 
and wondering w^hat she was laden 
with, turned his head to the left. The 
steamer plying from Havre was com- 
ing in — had almost reached the port. 
She had made a fine passage that 
morning ; not twenty-five minutes yet 
had passed since she steamed out of 
Havre. The coming in and the going 
out again of these steamers, twice 
each way in the summer days, is the 
great event in Honfleur life. 

In she came to the harbor, swiftly 
and steadily, rounded the point under 
the hotel windows, and moored her- 
self in her place, opposite the hotel 
entrance. Mark Cray changed his 
window now. 

Quitting the one at which he had 
been standing, he quietly opened the 
one which faced the town and inner 
harbor, and leaned out to ’watch the 
disembarking of the steamer’s live 
freight. 

“ I wonder how many of them will 
be coming into the hotel to breakfast 
he murmured. I wish ” 

What he was about to wish was 
never known. A voice from the inner 
room interrupted him. And it was 
not by any means a feeble voice, hut 
rather a loud one. 


320 


OSWALD CRAY. 


Mr. Cray 

Mark hastened in. To his surprise 
he saw his patient, whom he had left 
in hope of sleep, out of bed and dress- 
ing himself. Mark, as medical at- 
tendant, made a strong remonstrance. 

‘'I feel a great deal better,^^ was the 
answer. “ I can’t lie any longer. Is 
not that the boat come in ?” 

“ Yes,” said Mark. But ” 

Well I told you I must go back 
by her to Havre if I possibly could. 
Necessity has no choice.” 

Mark could only look his amaze- 
ment. The boat would go out again 
almost directly, and the patient stood 
little chance of getting time for break- 
fast. You cannot go by this boat,” 
he said. There’ll be another later in 
the day.” 

I can’t wait for that. I must 
be away from Havre by an early 
train.” 

“ But — I — I don’t know that I can 
pronounce you out of danger,” remon- 
strated Mark, hardly able yet to realize 
the fact that a gentleman, thought to 
be dying in the night, was dressing 
himself to go off by a steamer in the 
morning. '' Of danger, sir, do you 
hear ?” 

I know these attacks of mine are 
bad — dangerous, I suppose, while they 
last ; but once over, I am well, except 
for weakness. And the long and the 
short of it is, I must go to Havre by 
the return boat.” 

Mark Cray saw that further objec- 
tion would be useless. The chamber- 
man (I can’t help it if you object to 
the appellation ; the hotel had no 
women servants) came in with warm 
water, and the traveller ordered a cup 
of coffee to be ready by the time he 
got down. Mark went back to the 
sitting-room. He would stay and see 
him on board. 

The steamer’s first bell had rung 
when the traveller came forth. Mark 
caught up his hat and gloves. I 
hardly know what I am indebted to 
you,” said the stranger, placing a thin 
piece of paper in his hand. Perhaps 
that will cover it.” 


• It was a hundred-franc note. Mark 
would have given it back, badly 
though he wanted money. It was too 
much ; altogether too much, he ex- 
claimed. 

No,” said the stranger. I don’t 
know what I should have done with- 
out you ; and you have stayed with me 
the night. That’s being attentive. I 
was taken ill once before in the night 
at a hotel in France, where there 
happened to be an English doctor in 
town, and they got him to me. But 
he was gone again in an hour, and in 
fact seemed to resent having been dis- 
turbed at all. I didn’t pay him more 
than I was obliged.” 

^‘Ah, he had plenty of practice, 
perhaps,” cried Mark, rather too im- 
pulsively. But indeed this is paying 
■me a great deal too much. I don’t 
like to take it.” 

Indeed it is not, and I hope you 
will accept my thanks with it,” was 
the conclusive answer. 

Mark Cray saw the traveller on 
board the boat, watched it move off, 
turn, and go steaming down the port. 
And then he made the best of his way 
home, the hundred-franc note in his 
pocket seeming to be a very fairy of 
good fortune. 

They had come to Honfleur the 
latter end of April ; this was the be- 
ginning of June ; and poor Mark had 
not found a single patient yet. Mr. 
Barker was there to receive them. 
How Barker contrived to live, or 
whence his funds came, Mark did not 
know, but he always seemed flourish- 
ing. There are some men who always 
do seem flourishing, whatever may be 
their ups and downs. Barker was in 
Paris now, apparently in high feather, 
his letters to Mark boasting that he 
was getting into “something good.” 

Mark ran all the way home ; his 
lodgings were not far, near the ascent 
of the Mont Joli. Could scenery have 
supplied the place of meat and drink, 
then Mark and his wife might have 
lived as epicures, for nothing could 
well be more grandly beautiful than 
the prospect seen from their windows. 


OSWALD CRAY. 


321 


But, alas ! something besides the eyes 
requires to be feasted in this world of 
wants. 

It was a small house with a garden 
before the door, and was tenanted by 
a widow lady and her servant. Mark 
and his wife occupied a small sitting- 
room in it and a bed-chamber above ; 
opening from the sitting-room was a 
little place about four feet square, 
which served for kitchen, and was let 
to them with the rooms. They waited 
on themselves : it is rare indeed that 
attendance is furnished with lodgings 
in *France. But madame’s servant 
was complaisant, and lighted their fire 
and did many other little things. 

Caroline was in the bed-room, dress- 
ing, when Mark returned. Dressing 
in that listless, spiritless manner which 
argues badly for the hope and heart. 
It was a pity their expectations in 
regard to Honfleur had been so inordi- 
nately raised, for the disappointment 
was keen, and Caroline perhaps had 
not strength to do battle with it. She 
had pictured Honfleur (taking the im- 
pression from Barker’s letters and 
Mark’s sanguine assumptions) as a 
very haven of refuge ; a panacea for 
their past woes, a place where the 
English patients, if not quite as plenti- 
ful as blackberries, would at least be 
sufficient to furnish them with suffi- 
cient funds to live in comfort. But it 
had altogether proved a fallacy. The 
English patients held aloof. In fact, 
there were no English patients, so far 
as they could make out. J^obody got 
ill ; or, if they did get ill, they did not 
come to Mark to be cured. Tribula- 
tion in the shape of petty embarrass- 
ment was coming upon them, ^and 
Caroline began to hate the place. 
She was weary, sick, sad ; half dead 
with disappointment and ennui. 

Unfortunately, there was becoming 
a reason to suspect that something 
was radically wrong with Caroline. 
Not that she thought it yet ; still less 
Mark. Dr. Davenal had surmised 
that her constitution was unsound. 

During the time of that pleasant 
sojourn at Chelsea, where Mr. Dick 
Davenal came so suddenly upon them, 

20 


and Mark was accustomed to go out 
to take the air flourishing in blue 
spectacles and a moustache, Caroline, 
in undressing herself one night, found 
— or fancied that she found — a small 
lump in her side, below the ribs. 
She thought nothing whatever about 
it, it was so very small; in fact, it 
slipped from her memory. Some time 
afterwards, however, she accidentally 
touched her side and felt the same 
lump there again. This was of course 
sufficient to assure herself that it was 
not fancy, but still she attached no 
importance to it and said nothing. 
But the lump did not go away ; it 
seemed like a little kernel that could 
be moved about with the finger ; and 
in the week following their arrival at 
Honfleur she first spoke of it to Mark. 
Mark did not pay much attention to 
it ; that is, he did not think there was 
any cause to pay attention to it; it 
might proceed from cold, he said, or 
perhaps she had given herself a knock ; 
he supposed it would go away again. 
But the lump did not go away, and 
Caroline had been complaining of it 
lately. 

On this past night — or rather morn- 
iDg — when Mark was at the hotel 
with the patient to whom he was 
called, Caroline had been recreating 
her imagination with speculations upon 
what the lump was, and what it ^vas 
likely to come into. Whether this 
caused her to be more sensitive to the 
lump than she had been before, or 
whether the lump was really begin- 
ning to make itself more troublesome, 
certain it was that her fears in regard 
to it were at length aroused, and she 
waited impatiently for the return of 
her husband. 

Mark, this lump gets larger and 
larger. I am certain of it.” 

It was her greeting to Mark when 
he entered and came up to the cham- 
ber. She turned her spiritless eyes 
upon him, and Mark might have noted 
the sad listlessness of the tone, but 
that it had become habitual. He 
made no reply. He was beginning 
himself to think that the lump got 
larger. 


322 


OSWALD CRAY. 


“ And it pains me now, — a sort of 
dull aching. I wonder if it’s coming 
into any thing. Just feel it, Mark.” 

Mark Cray drew her light cotton 
dressing-gown tight across the place, 
and passed his fingers gently over and 
over it. He was not so utter a tyro 
in his profession as to be ignorant 
that the lump might mean mischief. 
Caroline, with the lightning quickness 
of apprehension, noted and did not 
like his silence. 

Mark ! what is it ? What’s going 
to be the matter with me ?” 

'‘Nothing, I hope,” replied Mark, 
speaking readily enough now. “ It 
will go away, I dare say. Perhaps 
you have been fidgeting with it this 
morning.” 

“ No, I have not done that. And 
if the lump meant to go away, why 
should it get larger ? It does get 
larger, Mark. It seems to me that it 
has nearly doubled its size in the last 
week.” 

“ I think it is a little larger,” 
acknowledged Mark, feeling perhaps 
that he could not get out of the con- 
fession. “ How long has it pained 
you ?” 

“ I can’t remember. The pain came 
on so imperceptibly that I hardly 
know when it first began. What is 
the lump, Mark ?” 

“ I can’t tell.” 

“You can’t tell ?” 

I can’t tell yet. Sometimes lumps 
appear and go away again, and never 
come to any thing.” 

“ And if they do come to any thing, 
what is it that they come to ?” 

“ Oh, sometimes one thing and 
sometimes another,” answered Mark, 
lightly. 

“ Can’t you tell me what the things 
are?” she rejoined, in a peevish, 
anxious tone. 

<< Well — boils for one thing. And 
tumors ; they come.” 

“And what becomes of the tumors ?” 
she quickly rejoined, catching at the 
word. 

“ They have to be taken out.” 

“Is it very painful ?” 


“ Law, no. The pain’s a mere 
nothing.” 

“And cancers? How do they 
come ?” proceeded Caroline, after a 
pause. “ With a little lump at first, 
like this ?” 

“ Cancers don’t come there. You 
need not fear that it’s a cancer. 
Cariue, my dear, you must be nervous 
this morning.” 

She passed by the remark, hardly 
hearing it. “ But Mark — you say 
you can’t tell yet what it is.” 

“Neither can I. But I can tell 
what it is not. I’ll get you a little 
ointment to rub on it, and I make no 
doubt it will go away.” 

Caroline was doing her hair at the 
moment. She had the brush in one 
hand, the hair in the other ; and she 
paused just as she was, looking 
fixedly at her husband. 

“ Mark, if you don’t know what it 
is, perhaps somebody else would 
know. I wish you’d let me show it 
to a doctor.” 

Mark laughed. He really believed 
she must be getting nervous about it, 
and perhaps deemed it would be the 
best plan to treat it lightly. “A 
Prench doctor ? Why, Cariue, they 
are not worth a rush.” 

“ I have heard Uncle Richard say 
the contrary,” she persisted. “ That the 
French, as surgeons, are clever men.” 

“ He meant with the knife, I sup- 
pose. Well, Caroline, you can let a 
Frenchman see the lump if it will 
afford you any satisfaction. You don’t 
ask me what has kept me out all 
these hours I” rejoined Mark, by way 
of changing the topic. “ I have had 
a patient at last.” 

“Yes, I supposed that. He was 
very ill, perhaps, and you had to re- 
main with him.” 

She spoke in the wearied, inert 
tone that seems to betray an entire' 
absence of interest. When the spirit 
has been borne down with long-con- 
tinued disappointment this weariness 
becomes a sort of disease. It was 
very prejudicial now, in a physical 
point of view, to Caroline Cray. 


OSWALD CRAY. 


323 


Mark took out tlie note. “ See 
how well he paid me he cried, 
holding it to her. I wish such 
patients would come to the Cheval 
Blanc every day 

The sight aroused her from her 
apathy. '^A hundred-franc note!” 
she exclaimed, with dilating eyes. 

Oh Mark I it is quite a God-send. 
I shall believe next in Sara Davenal’s 
maxim : that help is sure to turn up 
in the time of need,” 

In the time of need ! It was a 
time that had certainly come for them. 
The surplus of Oswald Cray^s twenty 
pounds, remaining after the expenses 
of removal were paid, had come to an 
end, and neither Mark nor his wife 
had seen their way clear to go on for 
another week. It was in truth a God- 
send ; more strictly so than Caroline, 
in her lightness, deemed. 

But the money, welcome as it was, 
did not take the paramount place in 
her mind to-day that it might else 
have done. That was occupied by 
the lump. Caroline’s fears in regard 
to it could not be allayed, and she in- 
sisted upon being taken to a doctor 
for his opinion without any delay. 
Mark made inquiries, and found a 
Monsieur Le Bleu was considered to 
be a clever man. He proposed to ask 
him to call, but Caroline preferred to 
go to him, her reason being a some- 
what whimsical one, as expressed to 
Mark : '' If he has to come to me I 
shall think I am really ill.” Accord- 
ingly they went that same afternoon, 
and the interview, what with Mark 
Cray’s French and the doctor’s Eng- 
lish, was productive of some tem- 
porary difficulty. 

They started after their early dinner. 
M. Le Bleu lived not very far from 
them, but in the heart of the town, 
and Mark began by calling him Mr. 
Blue, mns ceremonie, Mark had 
learned French at school, and there- 
fore considered himself a French 
scholar. On the door was a brass 
plate ‘‘M. Le Bleu, Medecin;” and a 
young woman in a red petticoat, gray 
stockings,, and sabots, came to the door 
in answer to the ring. 


''Is Mr. Blue at home ?” demanded 
Mark. " Mossier Blue, chez elle ?” 
continued he, trying to be more ex- 
planatory, in answer to the girl’s puz- 
zled stare. 

" Oh, Mark,” whispered Caroline, 
her cheeks flaming at the specimen of 
French. " Monsieur Le Bleu, est-il 
chez lui,” she hastily said, turning to 
the servant. 

Monsieur Le Bleu was " chez lui,” 
the girl said to them, and they were 
admitted. A little middle-aged gen- 
tleman in spectacles, with no beard or 
whiskers or moustache, or any other 
hair to speak of, for that on his head 
was as closely cuu as it could be, short 
of being shaved, came forward. He 
asked what he could have the honor 
of doing for them. 

"Speak English, Messeu ?” began 
Mark. " Parle Anglishe ?” 

"Yas, sare,” was the amiable re- 
sponse, as the doctor handed Caroline 
a seat. " I spack the Anglishe, moi.” 

" Oh then we shall get on,” cried 
Mark. " Madame here, my femme, 
it’s for her. I don’t think it’s much, 
but she would come. That’s my 
name” — handing in his card. 

The Frenchman was a little puz- 
zled by so much English all at once, 
and relieved himself by looking at 
the card. 

" Ah, c!est qa, Meestare Cr — Cr — 
Craw,” pronounced the doctor, arriv- 
ing with satisfaction at the name after 
some stammering. " And Madame, 
what has she ?” 

" Malade,” briefly responded Mark. 
"Elle a une — une — lump — come in 
the — the (what’s French for side, I 
wonder ?) in the cote. Ici, Messeu,” 
touching himself ; " mais il est tres 
petite encore ; no larger than a — a — 
petite pois.” 

Clearly the gentleman did not un- 
derstand. Mark had drawn him aside, 
so that they were speaking apart from 
Caroline. 

"A-t’elle d’enfants, Madame?” 

" Oh, oui, oui,” responded Mark, at 
a venture, not catching a syllable of 
the question, the Frenchman seemed 
to speak so rapidly. 


324 


OSWALD CRAY. 


Et combien ? I ask, sare, how 
many ; and the age of them ; the 
age 

'' Three-and-twenty. Yingt-trois.” 

** Yingt-trois !” echoed the doctor, 
pushing up his glasses. Mais, ce 
n’est pas possible. I say it not pos- 
sible, sare, that Madame have twenty- 
three children.’^ 

Ghildren shonteA Mark. “I 
thought you said age. She has not 
any children ; pas d^enfants, Messeu. 
She found of it before we quitted 
England — avant nous partons d’Angle- 
terre.’^ 

Monsieur Le Bleu tried hard to 
understand. '‘Where you say it is, 
sare, the mal ? Es-ce que c’est une 
blessure 

"It’s here,” said Mark, touching 
him now. " It came of itself — venait 
tout seule, grande at first, comme the 
tete of an epingle, not much more ; ^ 
present larger than a big pea — a petite 
pois.” 

The doctor^s ear was strained, and 
a faint light broke upon it. He had 
enjoyed the pleasure of conversing 
with English patients before ; in fact 
it was mostly from them that he was 
enabled to shine in the language. 

" Ah, je vois. Pardon, sare, it not 
a blessure, it a — a — clou ? — a bouton ? 
I ask, sare, is it a button ?” 

" It’s a Zi/mp,” returned Mark, star- 
ing very much. " A sort of a kernel, 
you know. Comprends, Messeu ?” 
he questioned, in no hurry perhaps 
to make any worse suggestion. 

The doctor gravely nodded ; not car- 
ing to confess his ignorance. " When 
did he arrive, sare ?” 

" When did who arrive ?” 

"Him — the mal, sare.” 

" Oh, the lump. Several weeks 
back — quelques semaines, Messeu. 
Pas beaucoup de trouble avec, de 
pain ! mais trouve nervous this morn- 
ing, and — and — thought she’d like a 
doctor’s opinion,” concluded Mark, his 
French completely breaking down. 

" Bon,” said the surgeon, wishing 
Mark did not talk English quite so 
fast. " Madame has not consultayed 
a docteur done, encore ?” 


" Only me,” replied Mark. " I’m 
a doctor myself — docteur moi-meme.” 

" Ah, Monsieur est medecin lui- 
meme,” cried the doctor, making a 
succession of bows in his politeness. 
" That will facilitate our understand- 
ings, sare. Has Madame the good — 
the bonne sante, de I’ordinaire ?” he 
continued, coming to a breakdown 
himself. 

" Sante de I’ordinaire ! — I wonder 
what that is ?” debated Mark within 
himself. " Yin ordinaire means thin 
claret, I know. I no comprendre, 
Messeu,” he confessed aloud. " My 
femme eats and drinks every thing.” 

"Is Madame — je ne trouve pas le 
mot, moi — is she sazne, I would 
ask ?” 

" San I” repeated the puzzled Mark. 
" Why, you never mean sane, surelyl” 
he exclaimed, in astonishment. ' ‘ She’s 
as sane as you or I. What on earth 
put that in your head, Messeu I she 
doesn’t look mad, I hope I” 

" I no say mad,” disclaimed Messeu. 
"I ask if she — ah, viola le mot, quel 
bonheur I — if she healthy ? — if she 
partake of the good constitution ?” 

A recollection flashed across Mark 
Cray’s memory of a doubt he had 
once heard drop from Dr. Davenal — 
as to whether Caroline’s constitution 
was a healthy one. " Elle a porte 
tr^s bien,” was his answer to Mon- 
sieur, plunging into his French again. 
" This mayn’t be aqy thing, you know, 
Messeu.” 

"I not like these boutons though, 
sare.” 

" Which buttons ?” demanded Mark. 

" The buttons you do me the honor 
to consult for. Je ne les aime pas, 
suit clou, soit tumeur — n’importe pour 
I’espece. In the place you indicate 
to me, it is like to be a tumeur, and 
she is obstinate.” 

" Who is, Messeu ?” asked Mark, 
in doubt whether the incomprehen- 
sible Frenchman did not allude to his 
wife. 

" She herself,” lucidly explained 
Messeu. "I have held cases that 
would not terminate themselves at all 
by any way, no not for the years. ” 


OSWALD CRAY. 


325 


Oh but this is not a case of that 
sort,” said Mark, half resentfully. 

A few simple remedies may dis- 
perse it.” 

Yas, I hope,” agreed the doctor. 

I would demand of Monsieur if he 
has tried the sangsues 

** The what ?” cried Mark, who had 
not the remotest idea what sort of a 
thing '' sangsues” could be. No, I 
have not tried it.” 

J’aime assez la sangsue, moi. She 
is a useful beast, sare.” 

Mark nearly groaned. Whatever 
had useful beasts” to do with this 
lump of Caroline's ? Useful beasts ?. 

Is it a camel you are talking of ?” he 
asked. 

^^A camel!” repeated the doctor, 
staring at Mark. Pardon, I no un- 
derstand.” 

Mark was sure he didnT. You 
spoke of useful beasts, Messeu ?” 

Yas, they have moche virtue, the 
sangsues. They do good to Madame : 
they bite her well.” 

Mark was never more at sea in his 
life. Roaming away in search of 
camels, his home perceptions were 
perhaps a little obscured in that move- 
ment. Bite Madame I What on earth 
was Sonsues ?” 

I speak of the little black beast, 
that long when she full — pointing 
to his finger. You call them litch 
— litch — ” 

Leeches,” interrupted Mark, with 
a laugh. I could not understand, 
moi ; Je pense, Messeu, que vous — 
vous — speak of wild beasts.” 

‘‘ Yas,” said the doctor compla- 
cently. I thought you understand, 
sare.” 

Bon pour Madame, nous dit, 
Messeu, the sonsues ?” 

^‘Je pense que oui. Mais — but I 
no say trop before the examen of 
Madame. I would see the hurt, me. 
I go to your house, sare, and meet 
[Madame without her robe. I go to- 
[moiTow at four of the clock after 
twelve, if that will arrange you.” 

So be it,” returned Mark, when 
he had puzzled out the words. Je 
dit a ma femme que — que — it was of 


no use for her to call here, herself ; 
you’d want to see her dishabillayed. 
Je vous nierci, Messeu.” 

And when they were walking home, 
Mark said to his wife how very glad 
he was to find he had kept up his 
French so well. 


CHAPTER XLIX. 

A BELL RINGING OUT AT MIDNIGHT. 

I WONDER whether you remember 
that most charming weather we had 
in the October of that same year, 1861 . 
The first fortnight of the month was 
more lovely than can be imagined of 
October : it was brilliant and warm 
as summer. 

Toiling up the ascent of the Cote 
de Grace, went Mark Cray and his 
wife on one of these delightful days. 
The word toiling would be misapplied 
to you, I hope, for the way is gentle, 
the ascent easy ; but it was toil now 
to Caroline Cray. The past three or 
four months had made a great change 
in her : health and spirits had alike 
sunk. As the lump got larger — we 
may as well call it by its familiar 
name — the body got weaker, and 
she felt the fatigue of walking now. 
Mark and the weather’s unusual 
beauty had tempted her out, and they 
had taken the way through the town 
to the Cote de Grace. 

Winding up the shady road — and 
the sun was too hot not to make the 
shade welcome — they gained the top. 
Caroline sat down at once on a bench 
that faced the sea : Mark stepped for- 
ward to the edge, dangerous enough 
if unprotected, and looked down. 
Was any panorama ever more beau- 
tiful ? It happened to be full tide, as 
it was that morning when you saw 
him looking at it before — the same 
view, from the windows of the Cheval 
Blanc. But the same view, extended, 
Enlarged, altogether grander, from the 
height on which he now stood. 

Mark Cray took a glass from his 


326 


OSWALD CRAY. 


pocket. It belonged to Monsieur le 
Bleu, with whom they were now pas- 
sably intimate : one of those small but 
effective telescopes rather rare to meet 
with. Adjusting its focus, he swept 
it round the horizon. He turned it 
to the right and saw the women wind- 
ing up the hill paths on their way 
from Honfleur market, their unbecom- 
ing borderless caps of every-day wear 
quite plain to him. Opposite was 
Harfleur, flickering in the light and 
shade ; underneath him, beyond the 
cultivated precipice, were the walks 
by the sea — if you call it sea — the 
road winding on afar, the bathing es- 
tablishment with its seats, and its 
linen spread out to dry. Havre itself 
looked rather cloudy from local smoke, 
but its entrance was beautifully clear, 
and Mai’k put up his glass again to 
gaze at it. Vessels, great and small, 
were rounding the point. A large 
steamer, which he recognized as the 
London boat, was turning into it, her 
steam so high, seemingly so close, 
that he might have fancied he must 
hear its hiss. A fine sailing vessel 
was being towed out, to commence 
her long voyage ; she looked like 
an Indiaman. The steamer plying 
between Havre and Trouville had 
reached its midway passage ; a little 
funnelled boat was bearing swiftly on 
in the direction of Fiquefleur bay ; 
an ugly black-looking yacht had 
pointed its nose towards the danger- 
ous bar of Quillebeuf ; one of the 
everlasting flat barges was moving 
imperceptibly up the Seine ; smaller 
boats and more picturesque were co- 
quetting on the manclie, and the Hon- 
fleur steamer was coming on quickly, 
leaving Havre far behind her. Mark 
extended the glass in the direction of 
the extreme left, and studied the ves- 
sels in the distance. Not a breath 
seemed to fill their sails. The blue 
and clear waters of the Seine were 
not calmer than that sometimes tur- 
bulent sea : river, manche^ sea, were 
to-day still as a lake. A fair scene ! 
none fairer throughout the department 
of the Calvados. 

How familiar the scene had grown 


to Mark Cray, he could tell you now. 
His days, unfortunately, were days of 
idleness, and he had nothing to do but 
look at it from some point or other 
of the heights. Mark’s fondly antic- 
ipated patients had not come to him : 
whether the handful of English sta- 
tionary at Honfleur preferred Mon- 
sieur Le Bleu or one of his compatriots 
to attend them, or whether they were 
so disobliging as to keep in perfect 
health, Mark Cray never clearly as- 
certained. All he could be sure of 
was, that he was not summoned. 
His professional services had been 
called into requisition but three times, 
including the stranger at the hotel 
who gave him the large fee. An 
English maid-servant had come to 
him once to have a tooth drawn ; she 
could not speak French, she said, and 
did not like to go to a chemist’s shop 
for it ; Mark drew it, borrowing his 
friend Monsieur Le Bleu’s pincers — 
or whatever you call the things — and 
charged her three francs. He said 
five at first ; but she slightly re- 
proached him, said she could have had 
it done in a shop for one, and in fact 
had but three francs with lier. So 
Mark took the three. The third time, 
he was called to a gentleman who 
said he had lived in Honfleur six 
years and had never been ill yet. He 
had now got an attack of what he 
called La grippe,” which Mark in- 
terpreted into the gripes, utterly un- 
conscious that la grippe in French , 
means influenza in English. The pa- 
tient soon got well, in spite of a little 
wrong treatment at first ; and Mark’s 
remuneration was ten francs. This 
was all he had earned, this ten francs, | 
and the three for the tooth, besides i 
the present made him at the hotel. | 
How were they to get along ? How ] 
had they got along ? They, poor j 
sufferers, could hardly tell, looking j 
back. Barker, who was in Paris still, 
full of wild hopes as usual, had sent J 
Mark once a hundred franc note in a | 
letter and a promise of more ; a little 1 
had come to Caroline from Barbadoes, 1 
for she had told of her woes ; and so S 
they existed somehow. Mark Cray f 


OSWALD CRAY. 


327 


was by no means one to sit down 
tamely and quietly to starve ; any 
hopeless scheme, rather than that ; 
but Mark was caged, as it were, at 
Honfleur, and did not see how to get 
away from it, or where to travel to. 
Under happier auspices the lump’^ 
might not have got so large as it was 
now getting ; had that Great Wheal 
Bang mine only sent its ore to market 
instead of getting drowned, it might 
never have shown itself at all, or at 
least not for years. Nothing brings 
out these constitutional deficiencies 
like adversity. 

Mark Cray lowered the glass and 
turned to speak to his wife, who was 
seated but three or four yards behind 
him. Towards her left were those 
inclosed and accommodating gardens 
of entertainment, where you might 
Ojrder a dinner and eat it al fresco, or 
where you might take your own bas- 
ket of provisions and they would 
bring you drink from the house, wine, 
milk, beer, lemonade, or coffee at 
choice. Behind her, looking beyond, 
rose the little Chapelle de Notre- 
Dame-de-Gr^ce, on whose interior 
walls were recorded accounts of de- 
voted pilgrims who had toiled on 
crutches up to the shrine, and Our 
Lady had rewarded their faith by 
an instantaneous cure, whereupon 
they went down rejoicing, leaving 
their crutches behind them, a me- 
mento of the miracle. On the right 
was the small building called, surely 
by courtesy, the Observatoire, where 
innumerable wonders might be seen 
for two sous. And on the near pla- 
teau close around, was many a bench 
similar to the one occupied by Mrs. 
Cray ; the grass forming a carpet 
underfoot, the trees a shade overhead. 
A pleasant spot to rest in on a sum- 
mer’s day ! a charming tableau to 
regard in silence. 

Won’t you come and have a look, 
Caroline ? I don’t think I ever saw 
the atmosphere so clear on a bright 
day.” 

She only shook her head by way 
of answer ; wearily, despondently. 

, The boat’s coming in,” he re- 


sumed, Two minutes more, and 
she’ll pass us. You’ll like to see her 
go by.” 

“ I can’t, Mark. My side is pain- 
ing me worse than it has at all. i 
must not walk up the hill again.” 

It was a very obstinate side, as M. 
Le Bleu would express it, a very per- 
sistent provoking lump, and that re- 
nowned practitioner — who was really 
a skilful man in spite of his obscure 
English — had formed his own opinion 
upon it. It baffled him and his rem- 
edies persistently. Even those highly- 
regarded betes, the sahgsues, had 
tried their best to subdue it — and 
tried in vain. Evidently the effective 
remedy was not sangsues. The lump 
had had its own way all these months. 
It had been growing larger and larger, 
giving by degrees more and more pain. 
Monsieur Le Bleu had once hinted his 
doubts of a “ tumeur fibreuse,” and 
Mark had politely retorted that lie 
was an idiot to fancy such things. 
What the end of it all was to be — of 
the disease, of the semi-starvation, of 
the next to impossibility to go on in 
Honfleur, of Mark Cray’s little diffi- 
culty with England and the share- 
holders of the old company — would 
take a wiser head than eitlaer Caro- 
line’s or Mark’s to tell. 

This day has been noticed because 
it was a sort of turning-point in this 
persistent malady : not a turning for 
better but for worse. Whether the 
walk up the hill injured her, for per- 
haps she had grown really unfit for it, 
or whether the disease of itself made 
a sudden leap onwards, certain it was 
that poor Mrs. Cray never went up 
the C6te de Grdce again. She 
walked home with Mark very slowly, 
and fainted when she got in. Mark 
did not like her look, and ran off for 
Monsieur Le Blue. It was only the 
fatigue, she said to them, but the next 
morning she did not rise from her 
bed. 

Several weeks dragged themselves 
slowly on, Caroline growing worse 
and weaker. An idea arose to her — 
it may have almost been called a 
morbid fancy — that if her uncle Rich- 


328 


OSWALD CRAY. 


ard were alive aod at hand, her cure 
would be certain and speedy. From 
him, it was natural perhaps that her 
hopes should stray to other English 
doctors ; not young men such as 
Mark, but men of note, of experience, 
of known skill ; and a full persuasion 
took possession of her mind that she 
had only to go to London to be made 
well. It grew too strong for any 
sort of counter argument or resist- 
ance ; it became a mania : to remain 
in Honfleur was to die ; to go to 
England and the English faculty 
would be cure and life. 

Mark would have gratified the wish 
had it been in his power ; but how 
was he to find the money ? But for 
Barker, they could not have gone on at 
all. He sent a trifle to Mark from 
time to time, and they managed to 
get along with it. Once, when they 
were at a very low ebb, Mark had 
written a pitiful account of their 
state to his brother Oswald, and a 
ten-pound note came back again. 
Ah ! what a contrast was this to the 
prosperity that might have been theirs 
at Hallingham I 

Winter had come now. December 
was in ; its first days were rapidly 
passing ; and so intense had grown 
Caroliiie^s yearning for home, that 
Monsieur Le Bleu himself said to 
keep her would be to kill her. It 
would only be the passage-money, 
Mark,” she reiterated ten times in a 
day. I should go straight to Aunt 
Betti na’s. Angry as she was with 
us for leaving Hallingham, she’d not 
refuse to take me in. Mark, Mark 1 
only the passage-money I” 

And Mark, thus piteously appealed 
to, began to think he must do some- 
thing desperate to get the passage 
money. Perhaps he would, if he had 
only known what. But while Mark 
was thinking of it, help arrived, in the 
shape of a hundred-franc note from 
Barker. Things were beginning to 
look up with him, he wrote, and 
perhaps he meant this as an earnest 
of it. 

Divide it, Mark,” she said, with 
feverish cheeks. I know how badly 


you want it here ; but I want it badly 
too. I want help, I want medical 
skill ; divide it between us : fifty 
francs will take me over.” 

And so it was done. How willingly 
Mark would have given her the whole I 
— but it was impossible. How wil- 
lingly he would have gone with her to 
take care of her on the voyage ! — but 
that was impossible. Mark Cray 
might not show his face in London. 
He took her as far as he could, and 
that was to Havre. On the morning 
after the arrival of Barker’s letter and ^ 
its enclosure they were ofl’ : and so 
great an effect had the knowledge that 
she was really going, wrought on 
Caroline, that she seemed to have re- 
covered health and strength in a man- 
ner little short of miraculous. 

She walked down to the Honfleur 
boat ; she would walk ; she was quite 
well enough to walk, she said. As 
they turned out of the house the post- 
man was approaching it, selecting a 
letter from his bundle. 

^'Pour Madame,” he said, giving it 
to Mark. 

It was from Sara ; they could see 
that by the handwriting. Caroline 
thrust it into her pocket. There was 
not time for reading letters there ; the 
bell of the starting boat had sounded 
over the town, and they and the man 
behind, who was wheeling Caroline’s 
trunk on a barrow, had much ado to 
catch it. They read the letter going 
over. It was merely a friendly letter 
of news, the chief item of which news 
was, that they were expecting Captain 
Davenal and his wife hourly from 
India. 

Then, Caroline, they won't be able 
to take you in,” was Mark Ci'ji \ ’s re- 
mark. 

Oh, yes, yes, it can be managed,” 
was her answer, so feverishly and 
eagerly delivered that Mark suspected 
she feared he might wish to detain 
her ; and he said no more. 

But now, when they reached Havre, 
Mark discovered that he and Caroline 
between them had made a very stupid 
mistake, as to the departure of the 
London boat. He afterwards found 


OSWALD CRAY. 


329 


that they had consulted the list of de- 
partures for November, instead of 
December. There was no London 
steamer departing from Havre that 
day. 

They stood on what is called the 
English Quai, Caroline weak, sick, 
depressed. A check of this sort 
thrown upon one in her state of health, 
is as very despair. Opposite to them 
was moored a small English steamer ; 
a board upon her, on which was in- 
scribed For London,” indicating her 
destination. I could go by that,” 
she said, feverishly, Mark, I could 
go by that.” 

donT think it is a passenger 
boat,” was Mark’s reply. 

They advanced to the edge of the 
quai and looked down. Two or three 
men, apparently English, were taking 
bales of goods on board by means of 
a crane. Is this a passenger boat ?” 
Mark asked them. 

“ No, sir. She’s for goods.” 

The answer was unmistakably 
English. A stout, middle-aged, re- 
spectable-looking man, who was seated 
across a bar, watching the men and 
smoking a pipe, looked up and inquired 
of Mark why he asked. 

It was the master of the vessel. 
They got into conversation with him, 
and told him of their dilemma. He 
was a kind-hearted man, and he offered 
to convey the lady to London if she 
could put up with the accommodation. 
She was quite welcome to go with 
them, free of expense, he said, and his 
wife had come the trip with him this 
time, so she’d not, as it were, be alone 
on board. How eagerly Mrs. Cray 
seized upon the offer, rather than go 
home again to wait a day or two for 
the regular boat, I’ll leave you to 
. judge. 

She went at once on board, and the 
vessel got out of harbor in the course 
of the afternoon, the master saying 
they should make London on the after- 
noon of the following day. But there’s 
no time to linger over this part or to 
give any details of the voyage : it is 
enough to say that the voyage, from 
unavoidable causes, was an unusually 


slow one, and they did not reach their 
destination in the Thames until late in 
the evening. It was a memorable day 
for us, that; Saturday, the 14th of 
December ; a day of sadness irrepar- 
able for our land. Not quite yet, how- 
ever, had the hour of calamity come ; 
and the astounding grief, half paralyz- 
ing England with its suddenness, had 
not fully broken upon it. 

It was nearly ten o’clock when Mrs. 
Cray was able to leave the steamer. 
To present herself, an unexpected in- 
truder, at Miss Davenal’s at midnight, 
was not to be thought of. All the way 
over she had been revolving the news 
contained in Sara’s letter, of which 
she had made so light to Mark : should 
Captain Davenal and his wife have 
arrived, she did not think there would 
be room for her ; and the untoward 
lateness of the hour increased the dif- 
ficulty. 

There came a thought flashing into 
her mind, welcome as a ray of light, 
“ I wonder if Watton could take me in 
for the night ?” 

Her kind friends, the captain and his 
wife — and very kind and hospitable 
they had been to her — had a cab called, 
and Mrs. Cray and her trunk were 
placed in it. She ordered it to St. 
Paul’s Churchyard, and inquired for 
Watton. 

Watton came out in a state of 
wonder. A lady in a cab wanting 
her ! Perhaps it was not lessened 
when she recognized Mrs. Cray : but 
Mrs. Cray, looking so awfully ill, so 
greatly changed I Watton, always of 
a demonstrative temper, could not con- 
ceal her shock of dismay ; and perhaps 
the woman’s words first imparted to 
Caroline a suspicion of what her real 
state might be. Always with Mark, 
he could not detect the ravages in her 
face as a stranger detected them : and 
the recent voyage of course added its 
ill to her looks. 

‘‘ Watton, could you take me in for 
the night ?” 

She was too fatigued, too worn and 
ill to enter upon her demand with in- 
troductory circumlocution. Watton 
only stared in reply. This, coupled 


330 


OSWALD CRAY. 


with Mrs. Cray’s appearance, mo- 
mentarily took her wits away. 

could lie on a sofa, or on a 
blanket put down on the carpet, any- 
where just for to night. I don’t like 
to go on so late to Aunt Bettina’s ; 
they do not expect me, and will have 
gone to bed. And you know what 
she is, Watton.” 

To be sure I can take you in. 
Miss Caroline,” returned Watton, re- 
covering herself partially, and warm- 
ing to the poor sick girl. Thirty 
hours in a steamer ! My goodness 1 
And they are horrid things always. 
I crossed over to Jersey once in my 
young days and I shall never forget 
it. Of course you can’t go on to 
Pimlico to-night. Bring in the trunk, 
cabman.” 

The trunk was placed inside the 
passage, the man paid and dismissed, 
and Watton was closing the street- 
door, when it was pushed against. 
She flung it open with an impatient 
word, and a gentleman entered. Wat- 
ton was taken by surprise. 

^‘I beg your pardon, sir, I’m sure. 
I thought it was the cabman wanting 
to stand out for another sixpence.” 

He passed her with a smile, glanced 
at Caroline and the trunk, and was 
making his way up the stairs when 
she again addressed him. 

Is there any fresh news, sir ?” 

^*Yes, and it is not good, Mrs. 
Watton,” he replied, turning to speak. 
^‘Report says, that a telegram has 
been received from Windsor, stating 
that there is no hope ; that the Prince 
is rapidly sinking.” 

His voice was low, his manner sub- 
dued ; and he raised his hat while he 
gave the answer, as if in almost holy 
deference to the state of him of whom 
he spoke. Watton lost her breath. 

It may not be true, sir I it may 
not be true !” 

“ I trust indeed it is not.” 

“ But, sir, was there not hope this 
afternoon ?” 

According to the report that 
reached us, there was. Could the 
Prince only bear up through this one 
night, all would be well.” 


He passed up the stairs as he 
spoke. Watton led the way into a 
sitting-room at the back of the house, 
and Mrs. Cray followed her in per- 
plexed silence, in eager curiosity, 
unable to understand the words she 
had heard. 

That great and good Prince, whom 
England knew too little, and whom 
to know was to love, was indeed 
lying in extremis in the castle that 
had been his many-years’ home. On 
that calm, clear, soft December night, 
when the streets of London were 
alive with bustle and pleasure, there 
was a dying bed not many miles away 
from it, around whose hushed still- 
ness knelt England’s sovereign, Eng- 
land’s royal children. The gracious 
and benignant Prince, the faithful 
consort, the loyal husband, the tender, 
anxious father was winging his flight 
away ; sinking gradually but surely 
from those loving arms, those tearful 
eyes, those yearning prayers, which 
could not keep him. 

London bad been shocked that day. 
Not so shocked as she might have 
been ; for perhaps not one living man 
within her walls realized to his mind 
the possibility of the worst. Death I 
— for him/ It was impossible to 
contemplate it : and froni the first 
duke in the land, down to the little 
pauper boys who sold for a penny the 
newspapers containing the bulletins, 
none did seriously fear it. 

Mrs. Cray listened as one aroused 
out of a dream. The Prince ill I— 
ill unto danger I The Prince who 
had been associated in men’s minds as 
one enshrined in a bright halo of 
prosperity, in the very sunshine of 
happiness ! — who had looked down 
from his dizzy height on other men 
as if he stood above the world I It 
seemed incredible. Watton gave the 
details, so far as they were known to 
the general public : the so few days’ 
illness, the apprehensions excited on 
the Friday, the fluctuating accounts 
of that same day ; the unfavorable 
news of the morning, the afternoon’s 
opinion of the medical men at Wind- 
sor, that if the Prince could only bear 


OSWALD C K A Y. 


331 


up through that one night — the night 
now entered upon — all would be well ; 
and now the latest tidings, that he 
was sinking I 

Mrs. Cray forgot her own weakness, 
her fatigue, in these all-absorbing 
tidings. But it was as impossible for 
her to believe in the worst for him as 
it had been for the public. A few 
minutes of awe-struck consternation, 
and hope reasserted its supremacy in 
her heart. Nay, not only hope, but 
a certainty that it ‘‘would be well.” 
I honestly believe that such was the 
prevailing feeling in every breast. It 
was so hard, it was so hard to look 
upon the reverse side of the pic- 
ture. 

“We had heard nothing of this at 
Honfleur I” 

“And we can’t say to have heard 
much of it here until to-day,” was 
Watton’s answer. “ It has come upon 
us with startling suddenness. Oh, if 
we can but get better tidings in the 
morning I” 

“We shall be sure to do that, 
Watton,” said Caroline hopefully. 
“ Death surely could not come to 
him. ” 

Watton made her some tea, and 
she sat over the fire in the sitting- 
room while she drank it. She could 
not eat: generally her appetite was 
good, but fatigue and excitement had 
taken it away to-night. She told of 
her residence in the French town, she 
hinted slightly at their want of suc- 
cess, and W atton looked grave as she 
spoke of her side. 

“You think the London doctors 
can cure you. Miss Caroline ?” — for 
the old name came far more familiar 
to Watton than the new one. 

“ I did think so,” replied Caroline, 
feeling that the strong conviction of 
this, which had amounted to a disease 
in Honfleur, had in some unexplicable 
manner gone out of her. “ I seem 
not to be sure of it, as I was before I 
came.” 

“And shall you make a long stay in 
London ?” 

“About a week. I have come for 
advice only, not to stay to be cured. 


Aunt Bettina’s is no house for me ) 
and perhaps I cannot even stay there 
at all. Captain Davenal and his wife 
may have arrived,” 

She heaved' a sigh of weary de- 
spondency. Watton urged her retir- 
ing ; but Caroline felt at rest in the 
easy-chair, and still sat on. It was so 
long since she had seen a home face, 
or conversed with a home tongue. 

“Who was that gentleman who 
passed us as I was coming in ?” she 
asked ; “ he who spoke of the Prince ?” 
And Watton replied that it was Mr. 
Comyng, a junior partner of the house, 
and the only one of the partners who 
resided there. 

It wanted scarce a quarter to twelve 
when Caroline at length went up- 
stairs to a very high bed-room. 
Whether it was Watton’s room or not, 
Caroline did not know, but it had been 
made cheery. The curtains and bed 
were white and pleasant-looking, and 
a fire sparkled in the grate. Watton 
would have stayed with her to help 
her undress, but Caroline preferred to 
be alone. 

When left to herself she drew aside 
the window-curtains, and saw that the 
room faced the front ; there stood old 
St. Paul’s, grim and formidable, and 
apparently so close to her that she 
might have fancied it within a leap. 
Letting the curtain remain open, she 
sat down to the fire, before which was 
drawn a chair as easy as the one down- 
stairs. 

She sat with her head pillowed on 
the high arm, gazing at the blaze, and 
musing over present events. Their 
strangely uncertain life at Honfleur, 
poor Mark’s position and poverty, her 
own malady, and the curious manner 
in which she had lost that eager faith 
in the result of her journey, her recep- 
tion on the morrow by Miss Davenal — 
with all these thoughts were mingled 
more prominently the tidings which 
had greeted her since her entrance. 

Unconsciously to herself, she drop- 
ped into a dose. It was a very foolish 
thing to do of course, for she would 
have been much better in bed ; but 
none of us are wise always. She dozed 


332 


OSWALD CRAY. 


placidly ; and the first thing that in the 
least aroused her, and that only par- 
tially, was the booming out in her ear 
of a deep-toned bell. 

St. PauPs clock striking twelve,” 
was the supposition that crossed her 
mind in its state of semi-sleep. But 
ere many minutes had gone by she 
became alive to the fact that the strik- 
ing did not cease — that the strokes of 
the bell were tolling out fast and loud, 
as — as — a death-hell strikes out. 

It has not been the fate of many to 
hear the bell of St. PauPs Cathedral 
strike out at midnight. Those who 
have will never forget it during life. 
Never, never will it be forgotten by 
those few as it went booming into the 
air on that still December night, bear- 
ing forth its message of woe to the 
startled hearts of the Metropolis. 

For a brief moment Mrs. Cray won- 
dered what was the matter. She 
sprung out of her chair and stood star- 
ing at the edifice, as if in mute inquiry 
what it meant. And then — when she 
remembered what had been said that 
night — and the recollection flashed on 
her with that heart-sickness that gen- 
erally accompanies some awful terror 
— she opened the window and leaned 
out. 

Three or four persons were standing 
underneath, motionless, still, as if 
they had collected there to gaze at the 
dark cathedral, to listen to the boom- 
ing bell. “ What is it ?” she called 
out. What does it mean ?” 

Her voice, raised by excitement to 
unnatural strength and clearness, was 
heard distinctly. Those standing be- 
low looked up. In one of them she 
thought she recognized Mr. Comyng. 
He was standing bareheaded, and his 
whispered answer came up to her in 
the stillness of the night. 

Prince Albert’s gone.” 

A moment of bewildering suspense 
while the mind refused to admit the 
dreadful truth, and Caroline Cray 
turned sick and faint. And then the 
sobbing cry burst from her heart and 
lips — a cry that was to find its echo 
from thousands and thousands as the 
hours went on — 


Oh, the Queen ! the Queen ! May 
God help and support the Queen !” 


CHAPTER L. 

A DESOLATE NIGHT. 

Yes, he was gone. Great Britain 
rose on the Sunday morning to the 
news, for the telegraphs were at 
work, and the tidings were carried 
to the length and breadth of the land.i^ 
And people did not believe it. It 
could not be I Why, it seemed but 
yesterday that he had come over in 
the flower of youth and promise, to 
wed the fair young queen I Dead ! 
Prince Albert dead I None of you 
have forgotten the wide gap in the 
litany that Sunday morning, the pale 
lips of the clergymen compelled to 
make it, the quivering, breathless 
hearts, that answered to it. But for 
the remembrance that God’s ways are 
not as our ways, how many of those 
startled and grieved hearts would 
have felt tempted to question the 
why of the stroke, in their imperfect 
wisdom. 

But to return to Caroline Cray, 
for the night was not yet over and 
the bell ^as ringing out. When the 
first immediate shock had passed, 
she quitted the window and leaned 
her head upon the counterpane. A 
solemn awe had laid hold of her, and 
she felt as she had never felt in all 
her life. Her whole soul seemed to 
go up in — may I dare to say ? — heav- 
enly commune. It was as if heaven 
had opened — had become very near. 

I may be mistaken, but I believe this 
same feeling was experienced by 
many in the first startling shock. 
This was so entirely unlike an or- 
dinary death ; even of one of our 
near and dear relations. Heaven 
seemed no longer the far-off mysteri- 
ous place she had been wont to re- 
gard it, but a home, a refuge, all near 
and real. It had opened and taken 
him in : in his early manhood ; in his 


OSWALD CRAY. 


333 


full usefulness ; in England's need ; 
when that wife and royal lady had 
learnt to lean upon him ; when his 
sons and his daughters were growing 
up around him, some of them at the 
moment in other lands out of reach 
of the loving farewell of his aching 
heart; with his mission here — it so 
seemed — only half fulfilled I — it had 
taken him in before his time, and gath- 
ered him to his rest. He did not 
seem to have gone entirely away ; he 
was only hidden beyond reach and 
sight for a little while ; that same 
refuge would open for her, Caroline, 
and others, a little earlier, a little 
later, and she and all would follow 
him. Heavy as the blow was in 
itself, incapable as she was of under- 
standing it, it yet seemed an earnest 
of the overruling presence of the liv- 
ing God. Oh, what was the poor 
world in that night, with the strokes 
of the death-bell sounding in her ears, 
compared to that never-ending world 
above, that heritage awaiting us all, 
on which he had entered I 

Eatigue and emotion did their most 
on Mrs. Cray. In the morning she 
was unable to get up, and Watton 
wisely and kindly urged that she 
should not rise at all that day, but 
take a good rest, and go on to Miss 
DavenaPs on the morrow. So she 
lay where she. was, and listened to 
that gloomy death-bell, as it periodi- 
cally gave forth its sound : and the 
bursts of tears, in her bodily weakness, 
could not be suppressed, but came 
forth repeatedly to wet the pillow, as 
she thought of the widowed queen, 
the fatherless children. 

The day’s rest did her a great deal 
of good, and she rose on the Monday 
renovated and refreshed. A wish had 
come over her that she could see a 
doctor and learn her fate, before she 
went to her Aunt Bettina’s. She had 
not come to town with the intention 
of consulting any particular surgeon ; 
— indeed she hardly knew the name 
of one from another. Watton, when 
sitting with her on the Sunday night, 
had spoken of a noted surgeon living 
in Westminster, and Caroline remem- 


bered then to have heard Dr. Davenal 
speak of his skill, and she determined 
to go to him. 

She went up in an early omnibus 
through the mourning streets. The 
bells were tolling, the shutters were 
partially closed, and men and women 
stood in groups to converse, sadness 
pervading every countenance. The 
surgeon, Mr. Welch, was at home, 
but she had to wait her turn to be 
admitted to him. 

He was not in the least like Mon- 
sieur Le Bleu, excepting in one little 
matter — he wore spectacles. A silent 
man, who looked more than talked ; 
he bade Mrs. Cray tell her case to him 
from beginning to end in the best 
manner that she was able, and be 
never once took his spectacles from 
her face while she obeyed. 

What she said necessitated an ex- 
amination of the side. It could be 
but a slight one, there, dressed as she 
was, but the surgeon appeared to form 
a pretty rapid opinion. She inquired 
whether it was curable, and he replied, 
that he could not say upon so super- 
ficial an examination, but he would see 
her at home, if she would tell him 
where she lived. In her reply, when 
she said she had no home in London, 
it escaped her that her husband was a 
medical man, living in France. 

** What part of it he inquired. 

At Honfleur.” 

Honfleur I” echoed the surgeon 
in an accent of surprise. ^^Is there 
sufficient practice to employ an Eng- 
lish medical man at Honfleur ? I should 
not have thought it. I was there a 
year or two ago.” 

The consciousness of the truth, of 
what the practice” was, dyed her 
cheeks with their carmine flush. Her 
eyelids dropped, her trembling fingers 
entwined themselves convulsively one 
within the other, as if there w’ere 
some sad tale to tell. Her bonnet 
was untied, and its rich white strings 
(for Watton had affixed these new 
ones and taken off the dirty ones) fell 
on her velvet cloak, nearly the only 
good relic left of other days. That 
grave gentleman of sixty, seated oppo- 


334 


OSWALD OKAY. 


site to her, thought he had never seen 
so lovely a face, with its fragile 
features, its delicate bloom, and its 
shrinking expression. 

She raised her dark blue-violet 
eyes, their lashes wet. Misfortune 
had brought to her a strange humility. 

There’s not much practice yet, sir. 
It may come with time.” 

He thought he could discern the 
whole case ; it is that of some who go 
abroad : a struggle for existence, 
anxiety of mind and body, privation, 
and the latent constitutional weakness 
showing itself at last. 

One single word of confidential 
sympathy, and Caroline burst into 
tears. Her spirits that morning were 
strangely low, and she had no power 
to struggle against emotion. 

'‘I beg your pardon,” she mur- 
mured apologetically when she could 
speak. ‘‘ The fatigue of the long 
journey — the universal gloom around 
— I shall be better in a minute.” 

‘^Now tell me all about it,” said 
Mr. Welch, in a kind tone, when she 
was recovered. There’s an old 
saying, you know: ‘tell your whole 
case to your lawyer and your doctor,’ 
and it is a good injunction. I like 
my patients to treat me as a friend. 
I suppose the practice in Honfleur is 
worth about five francs every three 
months, and that you have suffered 
physically in consequence. Don’t 
hesitate to speak ; I can shake hands 
with your husband : when I was first 
in practice, I had hardly bread to 
eat. ” 

It was so exceedingly like the real 
fact, “ about five francs every three 
months,” and his manner and tone 
were so entirely kind and sympathiz- 
ing, that Mrs. Cray made no pretence 
of denial. The practice was really 
not enough to starve upon, she ac- 
knowledged : none of the English 
residents of Honfleur ever got ill. 

“ But why did your husband settle 
there? . Was it his first essay? — his 
Start in life ?” 

“ Oh no. He was in practice at 
Hallingham before that, in partner- 
ship with Dr. Davenal.” 


“ With Dr. Davenal !” 

The repetition of the name, the 
astonished tone, recalled Mrs. Cray 
to a sense of her inadvertence. The 
admission had slipped from her care- 
lessly, in the thoughtlessness of the 
moment. Mr. W elch saw that there 
was something behind, and he kept 
his inquiring eyes fixed upon her. 
She felt obliged to give some sort of 
explanation. 

“After Dr. Davenal’s death, my 
husband gave up the medical profes- 
sion and embarked in something else. 
He thought he should like it better. 
But it — it — failed. And he went to 
Honfleur.” 

Her confusion — which she could not 
hide — was very palpable ; it was con- 
fusion as well as distress. All in a 
moment, the name, Cray, struck upon 
a chord in the surgeon’s memory. It 
was his custom to take down the 
names of his patients ere he entered 
upon their cases, and he looked again 
at the memorandum-book before him. 
“ Cray.” 

“ Your husband is not the Mr. Cray 
who was connected with the Great 
Chwddyn Mine ?” he exclaimed. 
“ Marcus Cray ?” 

She was startled to tremor. There 
was no cause for it, of course ; the 
fact of its being known that she was 
Mark’s wife could not result in *their 
taking him. But these unpleasant 
recognitions do bring a fear with them, 
startling as it is vague. 

“ Don’t be alarmed,” said the sur- 
geon kindly, discerning the exact 
state of the case. “ I do not wish ill 
to your husband. I was no share- 
holder in the company. Not but that 
I felt an inclination for a dip into it, 
and might have had it, had the thing 
gone on.” 

“ It was not Mr. Cray’s fault,” she 
gasped. “ He would have kept the 
water out had it been in his power : 
it’s coming in ruined him. I cannot 
see — I have never been able to see — 
why everybody should be so much 
against him.” 

“ I cannot understand why he need 
keep away,” was the answering remark. 


OSWALD CRAY. 


335 


He looked at her inquiringly as he 
spoke. She shook her head in a 
helpless sort of manner : she had 
never clearly understood it either. 

Ah well ; I see you don^t know 
much ; you young wives rarely do. 
Did you know Dr. Davenal 

'^He was my uncle,” she said. ‘^He 
brought me up. I was Miss Caroline 
Davenal.” 

Another moment of surprise for 
Mr. Welch. It seemed so impossible 
for a niece of the good and flourishing 
physician-surgeon to be reduced, as 
he suspected she was — almost home- 
less, friendless, penniless. 

She was struggling with her tears 
again. With the acknowledgment, 
her memory had gone back to the old 
home, the old days. She had scarcely 
believed then there was such a thing 
as care in the world : now ? 

You will tell me the truth about 
myself,” she said, recovering compo- 
sure. I came to England to learn 
it. Pray don’t deceive me. I am a 
doctor’s wife you know, and can bear 
these shocks,” she added, with a poor 
attempt at a smile. “Besides I seem 
to know the fate that is in store for 
me : since Saturday night I have not 
felt that I should get well.” 

There was one moment of hesita- 
tion — of indecision. Caroline caught 
at it all too readily. “ I see,” she 
said, “there is no hope.” 

“ I said nothing of the sort,” he re- 
turned. 

“But I am sure you think that 
there is not. Mr. Cray thought there 
might be an operation : the French 
doctor said No.” 

“ I cannot tell you any thing deci- 
sive now. I will come to you if you 
will tell me where.” 

She gave him Miss Davenal’s ad- 
dress. “ I am so sorry to trouble 
you ; I did not think of that. A few 
days and I shall go back to France.” 

“ No,” replied the surgeon. “ You 
must not think of going back. It 
would not do.” 

“But I came. And it has not 
hurt me.” 

“You must not return.” 


He spoke in a tone so quietly grave 
that Caroline did not like it. Could 
Mt be that he knew she would be un- 
able to go back ? What would be- 
come of Mark ? what would become 
of Tier? But she could not take up 
his time longer then. 

“ Is this right ?” she asked timidly, 
as she laid a sovereign and a shilling 
on the table. 

“ It’s quite wrong,” said he. “ Doc- 
tors don’t prey upon one another. My 
dear lady, do you think I should take 
money from Dr. Davenal’s niece ? — 
or your husband’s wife ? Any thing ^ 
that I can possibly do for you I shall 
be most happy to do — and I am glad 
you happened to come to me.” 

She went out of the house. Why 
it should have been she could not tell, 
for certainly Mr. Welch’s words had 
not induced it, but the conviction of 
a fatal termination, which had but 
dawned upon her before, had taken 
firm possession of her now. Lost in 
thought as she walked, she missed the 
turning by which she had gained the 
surgeon’s house, and found herself at 
last in a labyrinth, far away from om- 
nibuses and any thing else available. 

One directed her this way ; one 
directed her that. Weary, faint, unfit 
to move another step, she found her- 
self at last in a street whose aspect 
seemed more familiar ; but not until 
she caught sight of a door-plate, 

“ Bracknell, Street, and Oswald Cray,” 
did she remember it for Parliament 
Street. 

The temptation to go in and ask to 
be allowed to rest, was strong upon 
her, but she did not like to do so, and 
walked on, longing to sit down on 
every door-step. A little way further, 
and she met Oswald Cray. 

When the physical strength has 
been taxed beyond its . power, espec- 
ially in a peculiar case such as her’s 
any little break to it of mental excite 
ment either renovates it for the mo- 
ment, or destroys it utterly. It was 
the latter case with Caroline. 

“ Mrs. Cray I” exclaimed Oswald, 
in surprise. “I did not know you 
were in London.” 


336 


OSWALD CLAY. 


She caught hold of something in 
her faintness. Whether pillar, rail- 
ings, post, she could not have told. 
Her brow grew moist, her lips white. 

“ You are ill said Oswald, hasten- 
ing to support her. 

I lost mj way,” she gasped, lean- 
ing heavily upon him. “ I missed it 
when I came out of the surgeon’s, 
Mr. Welch. I came over from Hon- 
fieur on Saturday, Oswald ; I came to 
consult an English doctor. I am 
dying.” 

Dying I” repeated Oswald. No, 
no, it is only a little faintness.” 

Not this. I shall be better of this 
directly. It is my side : I’ll tell you 
about it when the faintness has passed. 
I thought there was no hope fo/ me ; 
I know it now.” 

He was leading her gently, by slow 
steps, towards the house. ‘‘ How is 
Mark ? Is he here too ?” he asked. 

“Not Mark. He cannot come, you 
know.” 

“ Is he getting on ?” 

“ Oh Oswald 1 getting on ! There’s 
no practice ; and we have not a penny 
piece ; and — I — I am dying. Oh, if 
I had not to die abroad ! if Mark 
could but come to me !” 

“ Where are you staying ?” he 
asked, after a pause. 

“ Watton gave me shelter. It was 
late when the boat got up, too late to 
go on to my Aunt Bettina’s, and I 
called at Watton’s and asked her to 
take me in. Oswald I — Oswald ! — ” 

“What?” he asked, for she had 
dropped her voice, and her utterance 
seemed to be impeded by emotion. 

“ I heard the bell toll out for Prince 
Albert 1” 

“Ah I” 

“ Oswald ! can you realize the fact 
that he is dead ?” 

“Not yet; scarcely yet. It is diffi- 
cult to believe that he is taken, while 
we are left. It seems to us, in our 
finite notions, that there’s hardly a man 
in the realm but could have been 
])etter spared. But God knows best.” 

Ilis tone of pain had changed to 
reverence. There was no more said 
until they reached his door. He as- 


sisted her up-stairs to the old sitting- 
room ; the same sitting-room with the 
same plans and charts and signs of 
work on its table. Oswald was a full 
partner now. Industry — truthful, pa- 
tient, persevering, fair-dealing indus- 
try — had met with its reward. Did 
you ever know it fail ? I never did. 
But the reward does not come to all so 
speedily as it came to Oswald Cray. 

Not the reward of a coach-and-six, 
the conclusion that some of you may 
jump to at the word. That might 
never be Oswald’s — and if it were, 
coaches-and-six don’t bring all the 
glory and bliss with them that our 
day-dreams picture. Mr. Bracknell 
had virtually retired from the firm, 
leaving most of its profit to Mr. Street 
and Oswald Cray. Had Miss Sara 
Davenal been the daughter of the still- 
living and flourishing physician on 
whom not a cloud rested, as was the 
case in years gone by, Oswald could 
have asked for her hand now, and 
given her a home that even he would 
have deemed worthy of her. 

Not having her, however, or any 
other lady, as a wife in prospective, 
he was content to let the home remain 
in abeyance, and lived in the old 
rooms, putting up with the comforts 
and agreeables Mrs. Benn chose to 
bestow upon him. The first thing 
Caroline did on being placed in an easy 
chair, was to faint away. It was the 
only time she had fainted since the 
day in October when she walked to 
the Cdt^ de Grace. Mark Cray gave 
fatigue the benefit of the blame then, 
and it was probably due to the same 
cause now. When Mrs. Benn came 
up in answer to Oswald’s summons, 
nothing could well exceed her amaze- 
ment at seeing a lifeless lady lying in 
the chair, her bonnet hanging at the 
back by its strings, her gloves on the 
ground, and Mr. Oswald Cray rubbing 
her unconscious hands. 

The first thought that occurred to 
Mrs. Benn was to wonder how she 
got there ; the second, that it was 
some stranger who had come to the 
offices on business and had been taken 
ill. 


OSWALD CRAY. 


337 


She’s married at any rate,” re- 
marked that lady as she took up the 
left hand to chafe it. But nobody 
would say so to look in her face. She’s 
like a girl.” 

Don’t you know her?” returned 
Oswald, glancing at the woman. It 
is Mrs. Cray ; my brother’s wife.” 

Mrs. Benn gave a shriek in her sur- 
prise. ^^Her! Why, sir, how she’s 

altered ! She looks fit ” 

Hush !” was his interrupting cau- 
tion, for Caroline began to revive. 

Can’t we improvise a sofa or mat- 
tress, or something of that sort, to 
place her on ?” 

CHAPTER LI. 

NO HOPE. 

In the same house at Pimlico, and 
in the same attire as of yore, save that 
the deeper mourning had been ex- 
changed for rich silks, and the black 
ribbons on the real guipure caps for 
white or gray, sat MissBettina Dave- 
nal. She was not altered. She had 
the same stately presence, the same 
pale, refined features ; she was of a 
stamp that changes little, and never 
seems to grow old. Sara had changed 
more than her aunt, and the earnest, 
sweet expression always characteris- 
tic of her face, was mingled now with 
habitual sadness. She wore a robe 
of soft gray cashmere, its white collar 
tied with ribbon, and bows of the 
sam^ ornamenting the lace sleeves 
shading her delicate wrists. 

Miss Bettina stood, grandly cour- 
teous ; Sara’s cheeks were flushed, 
and she played with a key which had 
happened to be in her hand as she 
rose. Oswald Cray had come in un- 
expectedly, and was telling the story 
of Caroline : telling it rapidly, before 
he took the chair offered him. What 
with the extraordinary nature of the 
news, and Miss Bettina’s inaptitude 
for hearing, it was a difficult business 
as usual. 

21 


Come over from Honfleur in a 
goods boat, and it didn’t get here ?” 
exclaimed Miss Bettina, commenting 
on what she did hear — for Oswald 
repeated the particulars Caroline had 
disclosed to him on her revival. 

^ And — where do you say she’s lying, 
sir ?” 

In my sitting-room in Parliament 
Street.” 

The boat is ?” questioned Miss 
Bettina, looking at Oswald keenly, as 
if she thought he had lost his senses. 

I beg your pardon, Mr. Oswald 
Cray, I must have misunderstood.” 

^‘Caroline is lying there. Not the 
boat. I fear she is very ill. She 
looks so ; and she says she is suffering 
from some fatal complaint.” 

Fatal mistake ! I should think 
so,” returned Miss Bettina. “ If ever 
a man made that, it was Mark Cray, 
when he threw up Hallingham. But 
what’s she come for ? And why did 
she go to you instead of to me ?” 

But Sara had drawn near to Oswald. 
She had heard the explanation aright, 
and the w-ords “ fatal complaint” 
frightened her. Do you know what 
it is ?” she asked. Is she very ill ?” 

“ She is so ill, if her looks may be 
trusted, that I should think she can- 
not live long,” he answered. ‘A 
came down to you at once. Some- 
thing must be done with her : we can- 
not let her go back to Watton’s. If 
you are unable to receive her, I will 
get a lodging ” 

^‘But we are not unable to receive 
her,” interrupted Sara. Of course 
we are not. My aunt ” 

Caroline doubted whether you 
had room. She had just told me 
you were expecting Captain Davenal 
and his wife.” 

We are looking for their arrival 
daily. Perhaps the ship may be in 
to-day. But they will not stay with 
us : Lady Reid expects them there. 
Did you not know Edward wms 
coming ?” she continued, quitting for 
a moment the subject of Caroline. 

His wife’s, father is dead, and busi- 
ness is bringing them home: She 
has come into a large fortune.” 


338 


OSWALD CRAY. 


'^Will you let me understand what 
this matter is interposed Miss Bet- 
tin a. 

It recalled them to the present. 
But to make Miss Bettina understand 

or rather hear — was a work not 

speedily accomplished. She even was 
aware of it herself. 

“I am not myself to-day, sir,” 
she said to Oswald Cray. I have 
not been myself since yesterday morn- 
ing. When the tidings were brought 
to me that — that it was all over with 
that good Prince — I felt as I had 
never felt in my life before. It is not 
a common death, Mr. Oswald Cray, 
or a common loss, even had we been 
prepared for it. But we were not 
prepared. That Royal Lady and her 
children were not prepared ; and we 
can but pray God, who tempers the 
wind to the shorn lamb, to love and 
help them. 

'‘Amen !” responded the heart of 
Oswald. 

When there was a real necessity for 
Miss Bettina DavenaPs relenting in 
her severity, she did relent. She had 
haughtily, coldly, steadily declined all 
pecuniary aid to Mark Cray and his 
wife, but she was ready and willing to 
succor Caroline in her present need. 
She returned with Mr. Oswald Cray, 
taking Sara. On her way she spoke 
to him about the rise in his prospects, 
a rumor of which she had heard from 
IN'eal. 

“ Is it true ?” she asked, bending 
forward to catch his answer as he sat 
opposite to her in the carriage. 

“ It is true that my share has been 
considerably increased. Mr. Brack- 
nell has retired.” 

“ I suppose you will take a house 
now !” 

“ I think not,” said Oswald. “ Single 
men don^t care to set up a house of 
their own.” 

“ What men don’t ?” 

“ Unmarried men.” 

“ Oh,” said Miss Bettina. “ Do you 
never intend to marry ?” 

Oswald laughed. “ I have no time 
to think about it, Miss Bettina.” 


Miss Bettina did not catch the 
answer. “ Some time ago we had 
reason given us to think that you 
were about to marry. Did you 
change your mind ?” 

It was a home question. Oswald 
could have joked it off but for that 
gentle, conscious, bent face in the 
opposite corner. “We have to give 
up all kinds of fond dreams and 
visions, you know, Miss Bettina. 
Youth is very apt to indulge in 
such : and they mostly turn out 
vain.” 

“ Turned out vain, did she ! I must 
say I did not think she was in a 
position worthy of you.” 

Oswald opened his eyes. “Of whom 
are you speaking. Miss Davenal ?” 

“ Of you. I was not speaking of 
any one else.” 

“ But — the lady ! You alluded to 
a lady.” 

“ Oh, the lady. You don’t want 
me to tell you her name. You know 
it well enough. That young Scotch 
lady whose brother was ill.” 

He actually drew a relieved breath. 
A fear had come over him that his 
dearest feelings had been exposed to 
Miss Davenal — perhaps to others. 
Sara’s color heightened, and she raised 
her eyes momentarily. They met 
Oswald’s : and she was vexed with 
herself. 

“ I shall most likely live a bachelor 
all my days, Miss Davenal. I believe 
I shall.” 

“ More unwise you, Mr. Oswald 
Cray ! Bachelors arc to be pitied. . 
They never get a cup of decent tea or ^ 
a button on their shirts.” 

“ I am independent of buttons ; I 
have set up studs. See,” he continued, 
showing his wrists. “And tea I don’t 
particularly care for.” 

Miss Bettina thought he was serious. 
“You’d be happier as a married man, 
with somebody to take care of your 
comforts. It is so different with 
women ; they are happiest single — at 
least, such is my belief — and their 
comforts are in their own hands.” 

“ The difficulty is to find somebody 


OSWALD CRAY. 


339 


suitable, Miss Bettina. Especially to 
us busy men, who have no time to 
look out.^’ 

True,’’ she answered. But whether 
she heard or not was another matter. 

What’s Mark Cray about ?” she pres- 
ently asked, somewhat abruptly. Do- 
ing any more harm ?” 

I hear he is not doing any good. 
There’s no practice in Honfleur.” 

No politics ?” 

Practice.” 

Nobody in their senses would have 
thought there was. Perhaps he ex- 
pects to get up a mining scheme there, 
and dazzle the French.” 

If he is to do any good for him- 
self, he must come over and get clear 
of the mining scheme here,” observed 
Oswald, 

Miss Davenal nodded her head and 
drew in her lips. It was not often 
that she condescended to make the 
slightest allusion to Mark Cray. 

I call his conduct infamous. Yes, 
infamous. I must say it, Mr. Oswald 
Cray, although he bears your name. 
As I sit and think of the past, I won- 
der whether he was really mad. He 
threw away — I speak literally — the 
valuable practice of my brother. Dr. 
Davenal : he recklessly and wilfully 
flung away the money inherited by 
Caroline ; he dishonestly refused to 
pay a shilling of the covenant money 
to Sara, when he had got it in his 
hands to pay. All is gone I — prac- 
tice, money, good name I He is a 
disgraceful exile in that French place, 
and his wife no doubt is starving — I 
dare say there’s nothing else much 
the matter with her. All gone I Why, 
sir, do you know that my brother con- 
templated the bringing up of one of 
those two lads, his nephews, to the 
profession, that a Davenal might still 
be at Hallingham 1 Mark Cray knew 
that he did. And what did he do by 
you ? Ah ! if I had but been listened 
to I I never wished him to marry 
Caroline. But, if they must have 
married, I said, wait; wait a year 
or two. And they would not.” 

Mrs. Cray was asleep when they 
entered. She lay on the couch hastily 


improvised for her, dressed, and cov- 
ered with a warm counterpane. One 
hand was under her wan cheek, the 
other lay outside, white, attenuate, 
cold. Miss Bettina Davenal took one 
look ; one look only with those keen 
eyes of hers. It was quite enough, 
and an exclamation of dismay broke 
from her lips. 

Caroline opened her eyes and gazed 
around in bewilderment, not remem- 
bering where she was at the first mo- 
ment of awaking. Oh, the contrast 
that she and her history presented to 
what had been I Little more than a 
year ago she was the gayest of the 
gay, revelling in the sunshine of pros- 
perity, never glancing at the possi- 
bility of its changing, that the day of 
adversity could dawn for her ! And 
now I lying there sick, enfeebled, home- 
less, prospectless ! If ever there was 
an illustration of the vanity of earthly 
things, of the uncertainties attendant 
on this life, it was surely this brief 
episode in the career of Caroline 
Cray I 

Aunt Bettina ! Have they been 
fetching you to me ? Will you take 
me in for a day or two until I can go 
back ?” 

I have come for you,” said Miss 
Bettina. 

Until I can go back ! Poor thing ! 
what had she to go back to ? A lodg- 
ing in a foreign land that they might be 
turned from at any hour, for the rent 
could not be paid up ; scanty nour- 
ishment ; care, trouble, almost de- 
spair. Only Mark to lean upon, with 
his wavering instability ; his vague 
chatter of the something that was to 
‘^turn up.” Better depend upon a 
reed than Mark Cray. 

Sara Davenal had drawn back for a 
moment, that the shock on her own 
face might be subdued before present- 
ing it to Caroline. Oswald passed 
round to her. 

“ Is she dying ?” came the fright- 
ened whisper. 

Do not be alarmed,” he answered. 

She looked worse than this when I 
first brought her in. She has had a 
good deal of excitement and fatigue 


340 


OSWALD CRAY. 


these last few days, and her looks 
suffer. 

<<yes — but — do you know there^s 
a look in her face that puts me in 
mind of papa’s. Of papa’s as it was 
the night he died.” 

It was not often that Sara gave 
way to emotion. The moisture had 
gathered on her brow, and her hands 
were trembling. Oswald gently laid 
his hand upon her shoulder. 

** You are not going to faint surely, 
Sara I” 

^‘No, no” — and the slightest pos- 
sible smile parted her trembling lips. 

I had used to consider that I was 
very brave, but lately — at times — I 
have found myself a coward. I seem 
to become afraid of trifles,” she con- 
tinued in a dreamy tone, as if debating 
the question with herself why it should 
be so. 

Where’s Sara ? I thought I saw 
her.” 

Sara moved forward at the words. 
She suppressed all sign of emotion as 
she stooped over her cousin. Caro- 
line was the one to show it now. 
She burst into tears and sobbed hys- 
terically. 

If CJncle Richard were but alive I 
He could cure me.” 

Don’t, Caroline, don’t distress 
yourself. There are doctors as clever 
as papa.” 

‘‘ I kept thinking” — she turned her 
colorless face to Sara as she spoke — 

I kept thinking at Honfleur of Uncle 
Richard ; that if the old days could 
come back again, and I were at home 
with him at Hallingbam, in the old 
house as it used to be, I should be 
well soon. The thought kept haunt- 
ing me. And, Sara, I am sure if my 
uncle were alive, he could cure me. 
I shall never believe otherwise.” 

She paused. Sara knew not what 
reply to make. Miss Davenal did 
not catch the words, and Oswald 
leaned on the back of a chair in 
silence, only looking at her as she 
lay. 

Where was the use of its haunt- 
ing me, this conviction ? Uncle 
Richard was gone. Mark kept din- 


ning in my ears that there were other 
doctors as good as Dr. Davenal, and 
at last I grew to think so too, because 
they were English. So I came over ; 
I should have had a fever or died if I 
had not come ; and now I see how 
foolish the hope was, for they cauH 
cure me. Nobody could do it but 
Uncle Richard.” 

Miss Bettina had been bending her 
ear close to the invalid, and caught 
the sense of the words. Why do 
you think nobody can cure you ?” 

I feel they can’t. No : Uncle 
Richard’s gone, and there’s no chance 
for me.” 

They got her ready, Oswald helped 
her down to the carriage, and she was 
conveyed home. The only home she 
would henceforth know in this world. 
Dorcas stood in the passage, and 
looked on askance as she entered the 
house. That the blooming young 
bride whom she had received into the 
Abbey at Hallingbam little more than 
two short years before ! 

Sara gave up her room to her as 
the most commodious one in the 
house, herself taking the chamber at 
the back of it, which had been occa- 
sionally occupied by Dick and Leo. 
Caroline looked round the room as 
she lay in bed, a curious, inquiring 
sort of gaze in her eyes. 

Have I been in this room before ?” 
she suddenly asked. 

She had never been in it. Her 
visits to Miss Bettina’s, when she was 
in prosperity in Grosvenor Place, were 
not sufficiently familiar to allow of her 
entering the bed-rooms. Sara told 
her she had never yet been in it. 

I seem to know it all ; I seem to 
have seen it before. I suppose it’s a 
sign that I shall die in it.” 

She spoke dreamily, alluding to a 
foolish superstition that she had heard 
in her childhood, and probably had 
never thought of since. It was not a 
very promising beginning. 

Miss Davenal wrote a line to Mr. 
Welch, the surgeon, and he called in 
the evening. Caroline was better then, 
calm and cheerful. Her spirits had 
revived in a wonderful manner ; but 


OSWALD CRAY. 


341 


it was in her nature to be subject to 
these sudden fluctuations. 

Shall I get well she asked, when 
his examination was over. 

I will do what I can for you. The 
pain I think can be very considerably 
alleviated. ” 

It was not a satisfactory answer. 
To most ears it might have savored 
of considerate evasion, but it did not 
to Caroline’s. Must there be an 
operation ?” she resumed. 

She looked up at him from the 
depths of her violet eyes, pausing 
before she spoke again. Monsieur 
Le Bleu said there must be an oper- 
ation, if it could be performed. 7/) he 
said ; he did not seem sure. It was 
the only chance, he said.” 

The surgeon met the remark jok- 
ingly. “ Monsieur Le Bleu’s very 
clever — as he no doubt thinks. I 
will see you again to-morrow, Mrs. 
Cray.” 

But — stay a moment. Tell me at 
least by which day I shall be ready to 
go back. You can put me in the 
proper way of treatment, and I will 
pursue it over there.” 

^^Not by any day. You must not 
think of returning to France.” 

She looked puzzled : there was a 
wild expression in her eyes. Do you 
mean that I shall not be able to return 
at all ?” 

Yes, I do. I say that you must 
not venture upon the shores of France 
again. We can’t think of trusting 
you to the care of that clever French 
doctor, you know.” 

And before Caroline had recovered 
her surprise sufficiently to rejoin, Mr. 
Welch had left the chamber and was 
down in the drawing-room with Miss 
Davenal. She bent her head as she 
waited for his opinion. 

Do you wish for the truth, 
ma’am ?” he asked. 

‘‘Wish for what?” repeated Miss 
Bettina, putting her hand to her ear. 

“ The truth.” 

“ Do I wish for the truth ?” she re- 
torted, affronted at the question. “ Sir, 
I am the daughter of one surgeon and 


the sister of another; I don’t know 
to whom the truth may be told if not 
to me. It is necessary that I should 
know it.” 

Mr. Welch gave her the truth : that 
there was no hope whatever. At 
least, what he said was equivalent to 
that. 

“ And the operation that she talks 
of?” 

“ It cannot be performed. The case 
is not an ordinary one.” 

Miss Bettina was for a minute si- 
lent. “ My brother. Dr. Davenal, al- 
ways said Caroline had no constitu- 
tion.” 

“ Dr. Davenal was right,” returned 
the surgeon. “ Mrs. Cray is one — if 
I may form a judgment upon so short 
an acquaintance — who could never, 
even under the most auspicious sur- 
roundings, have lived to grow old.” 

“ I remember a remark he made to 
me after Caroline’s marriage with 
Mark Cray was fixed — that it was 
well she should marry a doctor, for 
she’d need watching. A fine doctor, 
indeed I” continued Miss Bettina, iras- 
cibly, as she recalled Mark’s later 
career. “ If my poor brother had but 
known I I suppose it is all this dis- 
grace that has brought it on !” 

It may have hastened it,” said the 
surgeon. “ But this, or some other 
disease, would inevitably have devel- 
oped itself sooner or later. The germs 
were within her.” 

“And now what can be done for 
her ?” 

“ Nothing in the world can be done 
for her, as regards a cure. We must 
try and alleviate the pain. That she 
will now grow worse rapidly, there’s 
not a doubt. Miss Davenal, she must 
be kept tranquil.” 

“ Kept what ? Tranquil ? She had 
used to be one who would not be kept 
tranquil.” 

“ Well, it must be tried. Of course 
the circumstances are unfortunate ; 
1 erself here and her husband abroad. 
She must be soothed as if she were a 
child.” 

It was all very well for Mr. Welch 
to say she must be kept tranquil ; but 


342 


OSWALD CRAY. 


Caroline Cray was one who had had an 
absolute spirit of her own all her life, 
•and an excitable one. When Miss 
Rettinawent up to her room after the 
departure of the surgeon, she found 
her in a wild state. Her cheeks were 
crimson with incipient fever, her eyes 
glistening. Sara, terrified, was hold- 
ing her down in bed, begging her to 
be reasonable. 

“I want to go back at once. Aunt 
Bettina,^^ she exclaimed, throwing out 
her arms in a sort of frenzy. “ He 
says I can’t go back to France, but I 
will go. What does he know about 
it, I wonder ! I was well enough to 
come, and I am well enough to go 
back ! Be quiet, Sara ! Why do you 
wish to prevent my speaking ? You’ll 
send me back to-day, won’t you, Aunt 
Bettina ?” 

“I’ll send for a strait waistcoat and 
put you into that,” shrilly cried Miss 
Bettina in her vexation. “ This is a 
repetition of the childishness of the 
old days.” 

“ I won’t be separated from Mark. 
Though he has been mistaken and 
imprudent, he is still my husband. 
It’s a shame that Mr. Welch wants to 
keep me here ! Don’t you be so 
cruel as to side with him. Aunt Bet- 
tina.” 

For once in her life Miss Bettina 
Davenal lent herself to an evasive 
compromise. She promised Caroline 
that she should go back when she was 
a little stronger, perhaps in two or 
three days, she said. And it had the 
desired effect. It soothed away the 
invalid’s dangerous excitement, and 
she turned round on her pillow and 
went to sleep quietly. 

But as the days went on, and the 
disease — as the surgeon had foretold 
— rapidly developed itself, it became 
plain to Mrs. Cray herself that return- 
ing to France was out of the question. 
And then her tone changed. She no 
longer prayed in impatient words to 
be sent ; she bewailed in impassioned 
tones that she must die away from her 
husband. One day, towards the end 
of December, it almost seemed that 
her brain was slightly affected, per- 


haps from weakness. She started 
suddenly from the sofa in the dra'w- 
ing-room \vhere she was reclining, 
and seized hold of the hands of her 
aunt, her manner wild. 

“Oh, Aunt Bettina ! Aunt Bet- 
tina I if I had not to go over there to 
die !” 

“ Over where ?” cried Miss Bettina. 
“ What are you talking of, child ?” 

'‘'There. Honfleur. If I had not 
to go ! If I could but stop in my own 
land, among you to the last ! It may 
not be for long !” 

Miss Bettina, what with the sud- 
denness of the attack and her own 
deafness, was bewildered. “ I don’t 
hear,” she helplessly said. 

“ They have got two cemeteries, 
but I’d not like to lie in either,” went 
on Caroline. “ Mark won’t stop in 
the town forever, and there’d be no- 
body to look at my grave. Aunt, 
aunt ! I can’t go over there to die I” 

“But you are not going there,” re- 
turned Miss Bettina, catching the 
sense of the words. “You must be 
dreaming, Caroline. You are^ not 
going back to Honfleur.” 

“ I must go. I can’t die away 
from Mark. Aunt, listen I” she pas- 
sionately continued, clasping the wrist 
of Miss Bettina until that lady felt the 
pain. “ It is one of two things : 
either I must go to Honfleur, or Mark 
must come here. I cannot die away 
from him.” 

The cry was reiterated until it grew 
into a wail of agony. She was suffer- 
ing herself to fall into that excess of 
nervous agitation, so difficult to 
soothe, so pernicious to the sick 
frame. Sara came in alarmed, and 
gathered the nature of the excitement. 
She leaned over the sofa with a sooth- 
ing whisper. 

“ Dear Carine 1 only be quiet ; only 
be comforted I We will manage to get 
Mark over here.” 

The low tone, the gentle words 
seemed partially to allay the storm of 
the working brain. Caroline turned 
to Sara. 

“ What do you say you’ll do 

“ Get Mark over to London.” 


OSWALD CRAY. 


343 


She thought for a moment, and 
then shook her head and spoke 
wearily, a wailing plaint in her 
tone. 

You will never get him over. He 
is not to be got over. I know Mark 
better than you, Sara. So long as 
that miserable Wheal Bang hangs 
over his head, he will not set his foot 
on English ground. 1 have heard 
him say this times upon times since 
he left these shores, and he will not 
break his word. He is afraid, you 
see. O Aunt Bettina I’’ — throwing 
up her arms again in renewed excite- 
ment — what an awful mistake it 
was I’’ 

What was a mistake returned 
Miss Bettina, catching the last word 
and no other. 

WhatP^ echoed the unhappy in- 
valid in irritation. The quitting 
Hallingham ; the past altogether. It 
was giving up the substance for the 
shadow. If we had but listened to 
you ! If Mark had never heard of 
the Great Wheal Bang 

Oh those ifs, those ifs I how they 
haunt us through life ! How many 
of us are perpetually giving up the 
substance for the shadow ! 

^ 

CHAPTER LII. 

DREADFUL TREACHERY. 

Mr. Mark Cray stood on the little 
bit of low, stony ground that bordered 
the coast at Honfleur, just outside the 
ontrance of the harbor. Mr. Mark 
was kicking pebbles into the water. 
Being in a remarkably miserable and 
indecisive state of mind, having noth- 
ing on earth to do, he had strolled out 
of his lodgings anywhere that his 
legs chose to carry him ; and there 
he was, looking into the water on 
that gloomy winter’s evening. 

But pray don’t fear he had any 
ulterior designs of making himself 
better acquainted with its chilly 
depths Men in the extremity of 


despair have been known to entertain 
such ; Mark Cray never would have 
dreamt of it. There was an elasticity 
in Mark’s spirit, a shallowness of feel- 
ing quite incompatible with that sad 
state of mind hinted at, and the most 
prominent question pervading Mark 
even now was, how long it would be 
before something turned up.” 

JSTot but that Mark Cray was miser- 
able enough : in a bodily sense, how- 
ever, rather than in a mental. It was 
not an agreeable state of things by 
any means to have no money to go on 
with ; to be wanting it in a hundred 
odd ways ; to be told that if he did not 
pay up at his lodgings that week, he 
must turn out of them — and the French 
have an inconvenient way of not allow- 
ing you to evade such mandates. It 
was not pleasant to be reduced to a 
meal or so a-day, and that not a 
sumptuous one ; it was not convenient 
to be restricted to the pair of boots 
he had on, and to know that the soles 
were letting in the wet ; it was not 
cheery to be out of charcoal for the 
cooking rechaudSj or to have but a 
shovelful of coals left for the parlor ; 
moreover and above all, it was most 
especially annoying and unbearable 
not to have had the money to pay for 
a letter that morning, and which, in 
consequence of that failure, the inex- 
orable postman had carried away with 
him. 

Mrs. Cray’s assertion — that her 
husband never would be got over to 
London so long as the formidable 
Wheal Bang threatened danger — 
proved to be a correct one. Mark 
had declined the invitation to go. 
News had been conveyed to him in 
an unmistakably impressive manner 
of the state his wife was in, and an 
urgent mandate sent that he should 
join her. Oswald only waited his 
consent to forward him funds for the 
journey ; and poor Caroline hinted 
in a few private lines that he could 
choose a steamer that would not make 
the port of London until after dark 
and could wear his spectacles in land- 
ing. All in vain. Mark Cray had 
somehow contrived to acquire a whole- 


344 


OSWALD CRAY. 


some terror of the British shores, and 
to them he would not be enticed. 

But has it ever struck you in your 

passage through life how wonderfully 
things work round ? Caroline Cray 
was dying ; was wanting her husband 
to be by her side and see the last of 
her, as it was only right and natural 
she should; but he — looking at things 
as he looked at them — was debarred 
from going to her ; it was — judging 
as he judged — a simple impossibility 
that he should go. And this great 
barrier was turning her mind to frenzy, 
was making a havoc of her dying 
hours, and increasing her bodily suf- 
ferings in an alarming degree. 

It did seem an impossibility. If 
Mark Cray refused to venture to his 
own land so long as the Wheal Bang 
held its rod over him, it was next door 
to certain that he could not come at all. 
The Wheal Bang^s shareholders would 
not relax their threats, except on the 
payment of certain claims, and who 
would be sufficiently philanthropic to 
pay them ? N obody in the wide world. 
So there appeared to be no hope for 
it ; and the knowledge that there was 
not was entirely taking from Caroline 
Cray that tranquillity of mind and 
body which ought if possible to attend 
the last passage to the tomb : nay, it 
was keeping her in a state of excite- 
ment that was pitiable for herself and 
for all who beheld her. If Mark 
could but come I’’ was the incessant 
cry, night and day. “ I can^t die un- 
less Mark comes.” 

You have heard that beautiful 
phrase, Man’s extremity is God’s 
opportunity,” and though it may 
strike you as almost irreverent to 
introduce any matter connected with 
Mark Cray as an exemplification of 
it, what came to pass was surely very 
like one of these opportunities. Poor, 
erring, shallow-pated Mark I even he 
was remembered, neglectful as he had 
been of that Great Remembrancer. 

While Caroline was lifting her 
hands to heaven with a vain cry in 
which there was no trust ; while it 
seemed to all that there was no hu- 
man feasibility of bringing Mark to 


England, that feat was accomplished 
in the easiest and most unexpected 
manner. Is it too much to say that a 
Higher Power was at work in answer 
to that poor woman’s despairing cry ? 
— though the human agencies em- 
ployed were of the least exalted. 

Mr. Barker, who was in something 
grand and good (good in his sense) in 
Paris, found it necessary for his own 
plans to pay a visit to London. And 
when there, he, to use bis own phrase 
got dropped upon in other words 
he fell into the still out-stretched .. 
hands of the Great Wheal Bang. That 
it was unexpected to himself, there’s 
no doubt ; for he was one of those 
men who believe implicitly in their 
own luck. Once in the mesh. Barker 
resolved to make the best of it. He 
had done nothing wrong, nothing that 
he could be punished for, and he care- 
lessly told them that his only motive 
in not surrendering beforehand was 
the bother of having the accounts to 
go over. Perhaps it really was so. 

Mr. Barker’s usual luck attended 
him now. After he was arrested and 
had been kept in durance for four 
days, the shareholders released him. 
The very shareholders themselves re- 
leased him I the wronged, irritated, 
angry shareholders 1 Surely there 
was some charm in Barker’s tongue 1 
He talked them over to the most mi- 
raculous degree ; and they took him 
out of prison, somebody going bail for 
the single debt on which he had been 
taken. Now that the thing had come 
to a crisis. Barker was as eager as ' 
they were to get it to a settlement, 
and he went to work with a will. A 
settlement, however, could not be come 
to without the presence of Mark 1 ’ray ; 
Mark and Barker were both made 
bankrupts, and it was necessary l iiat 
Mark should come over — or else never 
come over any more. So Barker 
wrote for him. 

We left Mark standing on the 
water’s edge. He was all unconscious 
of these doings at home which so 
nearly affected him ; and he stood 
there speculating as to what news the 
letter refused to him in the morning, 


OSWALD CRAY. 


345 


contained. By some mischance Barker 
had neglected fully to prepay it ; he 
had put on a four-penny stamp, hut 
the letter turned out to be over weight 
by a hair^s breadth, and of course the 
indignant Honfleur postal authorities 
declined to give it up. 

What he^s doing in London puz- 
zles me,” cogitated Mark — for he had 
recognized the writing on the letter as 
Barker’s. “ He told me he should not 
show himself there until the bother 
was over. What took him there now, 
I wonder 

He stopped to single out a particu- 
larly shiny stone imbedded in the mud, 
lifted it up with his toe and kicked it 
into the water. A little shrimping- 
boat was making towards him, for it 
was low tide, laden with its spoils of 
the day. But it was not very near 
yet. 

‘‘It’s well that she should have 
gone over as she did,” he resumed, 
his thoughts reverting to his wife. 
“ Heaven knows I should like to be 
with her ; but she haS all she wants 
there, and here she’d have nothing. 
I wish I could be with her ! As to 
their saying — that Welch, or what- 
ever his name is — I don’t remember 
any great light of that name — that 
she’s incurable, I don’t believe it. 
That old Bleu said the same, or 
wanted to say it — such jargon as the 
fellow talked to be sure ! — but Bleu’s 
nothing better than an old woman. 
By the way, I wonder how long Bleu 
intends to stop away ! It’s fine to be 
these French fellows, taking a holiday 
when they choose and leaving their 
patients to a confrere! I wish he 
had left me the confrere on the occa- 
sion, ’twould have been a few francs, 
at any rate, in my pocket. The 
French wouldn’t have had that, I 
suppose 1 their envious laws won’t 
permit an Englishman to practice on 
themselves. Oh, if some rich coun- 
tryman of one’s own would but get 
ill !” 

Mark Cray strolled a few steps 
either way, and halted again in the 
same place as before ; he kicked six 
stones into the water, one after the 


other, the seventh was an obstinate 
one, and would not come out. Dull 
and dreary did the waves look that 
evening, under the gray and leaden 
sky. That’s speaking rather meta- 
phorically, y©u know, for in point of 
fact there are no waves off Honfleur, 
except in the stormiest of weather. 

That Mark Cray’s condition was a 
forlorn one, nobody can dispute. He 
had no friends or acquaintance in the 
town ; a latent, ever-present con- 
sciousness of their straits, their posi- 
tion and its secrets, had caused him 
and his wife to abstain from making 
any, and one or two English residents 
who had shown themselves disposed 
to be friendly were repulsed at the 
onset. Hot a single person within 
reach could Mark Cray apply to with 
the slightest justifiable plea of ac- 
quaintanceship and say. Lend me 
sixteen sous, that I may pay for a 
letter 1 Even Monsieur Le Bleu, as 
we have gathered from his soliloquy, 
was away. But Mark wished much 
to get that letter, and he was think- 
ing how he could get it in this very 
moment as he looked out across the 
water to the opposite coast, to the 
dark cloud that hung over Harfleur. 

“ ’Twould be of no use going to the 
post-office unless I took the money,” 
he soliloquized. “ They’d never let 
me have it without. Stingy old 
frogs ! What’s sixteen sous, that 
they can’t trust a fellow ? Help must 
come to me soon from some quarter 
or other ; things can’t stand in their 
present plight. That very letter may 
have money in it.” 

Grumbling, however, would not 
bring him the letter, neither would 
kicking pebbles into the Manche : 
Mr. Mark Cray grew tired of his 
pastime, and turned finally away from 
it. He sauntered through the waste 
ground underneath the side windows 
of the hotel, his ears nearly deafened 
by the noise of the rough boys who 
were quarrelling in groups over their 
marbles, made a detour across the 
bridge, glanced askance at the slip of 
building, grandly designated Bureaus 
de Postes, and turned off towards his 


346 


OSWALD CRAY, 


home. It was a soft, calm evening 
in January, gloomy enough over head, 
but in the west the sky was clearing, ' 
and a solitary star came peeping out, 
imbedded like a diamond in its gray 
setting. To a mind less matter-of- 
fact than Mark Cray’s, that star might 
have seemed as a ray of hope ; an 
earnest that skies do not remain 
gloomy forever. 

Mark turned in at his little garden 
and was about to ring gingerly at the 
house door ; as one, not upon the 
most cordial terms with a frowning 
landlady, likes to ring ; when a voice 
in the road greeted him. 

Bon soir !” 

‘‘Bon soir,” returned Mark, sup- 
posing it was but the courteous salu- 
tation of some chance passer-by, and 
not troubling himself to turn his bead. 

“ Et madame ? quelles nouvelles 
avez-vous d’elle ?” 

Mark wheeled round. It was Mon- 
sieur Le Bleu. 

Mark Cray extended his hand, and 
his face lighted up. In his desolation, 
even this French doctor was inexpres- 
sively welcome. 

“ I didn’t know you were back, Mr. 
Blue : savais pas que vous retournez, 
messeu,” added he, taking his cus- 
tomary plunge in the mysteries of 
French. 

“ I come from return this after- 
midday,” said the surgeon. “ I ask, 
sare, if you have the news from 
madame ?” 

“ 8he’s worse, and can’t come back,” 
said Mark. “ Plus rnalade. Not to 
be cured at all, they say, which I don’t 
believe ; pas croyable, messeu. I 
don’t believe the English rnedecin 
understands the case. Non I jamais.” 

“ Do I not say two — three — four 
months ago, me ? I know she not 
curable. I feel sure what it was. 
You call it Mump’ and ‘bouton’ — 
bah ! C’est une tumeur fibreuse. I 
say to you, mon ami, you — tiens ! 
c’est le facteur I” 

For the facteur had come up at an 
irregular hour, and this it was which 
had caused Monsieur Le Bleu’s inter- 
rupting remark of surprise. The 


bureau des postes had despatched him 
to offer the letter a second time to Mark. 

“ Has monsieur got the money 
now ?” he demanded in quick French, 
which was a vast deal more intellig- 
ible to his French auditor than his 
English one. “ If not, our bureau 
won’t be at the pains to offer the 
letter a third time, and monsieur must 
get the letter from the bureau himself 
if he wants it.” 

What with the amount of French 
all at once, and the embarrassment of 
the situation, Mark Cray devoutly 
wished the postman underneath the 
waters of the Manche. That func- 
tionary, however, stood his ground 
where he was, and apparently had no 
intention of leaving it. He bent over 
the gate, the letter in his outstretched 
hand. Monsieur Le Bleu looked on 
with some interest, curious to know 
why the letter had been refused. He 
inquired why of Mark, and Mark 
muttered some unintelligible words in 
answer, speaking in French so exces- 
sively obscure that the surgeon could 
not understand a syllable. 

So he turned for information to the 
facteur. “Did monsieur dispute the 
charge ?” he asked. 

“ Not at all,” replied the man. 
“ It was not a dispute as to charge. 
The English monsieur had no money. 
It was a double letter : sixteen sous.” 

“Ah, no change,” said Monsieur 
Le Bleu, with a delicacy that many 
might have envied, as he turned his 
eyes from Mark Cray’s downcast face. 
“ It’s a general complaint. I never 
knew the small change as scarce as it 
is : one can get nothing but gold. 
Hold, I’ll take the letter from you, 
facteur, and monsieur can repay me 
when he gets change.” 

The surgeon handed the sixteen 
sous to the postman, and gave the 
letter to Mark. Mark spoke some 
obscure words about repaying him 
on the morrow, and broke the seal. 

There was still light enough to 
see, though very obscurely, and Mark 
Cray’s dazed eyes fell on a bank- 
note for £5. The surgeon had bade 
him good-night, and was walking 


OSWALD CRAY. 


341 


away with the postman : Mark Cray 
was only half conscious of their de- 
parture. Debt did not affect Mark 
as it does those ultra-sensitive spirits 
who can only sink under its ills : 
nevertheless, he did feel as if an over- 
whelming weight had been taken from 
him. 

He rang at the bell, loudly now, 
feeling not so afraid of meeting 
madame, should she open it. And he 
lightedl his little lamp and read the 
letter. Read it almost in disbelief, 
T-half doubting whether its good news 
could indeed be true. For Mr. Barker 
had written all couleur de rose : and a 
very deep rose, too. 

The Wheal Bang had come to 
its senses, and the worry was over. 
He, Barker, was upon confidential 
terms with all the shareholders, shook 
hands with them individually thrice a 
day. There would be no fuss, no 
bother ; the affairs were being wound 
up in the most amicable manner, and 
Mark had better come over without 
an hour’s delay, and help. The sooner 
they got it done, the sooner they 
should be free to turn their attention 
to other matters, and he. Barker, had 
a glorious thing in hand just now, 
safe to realize three thousand a 
year. 

Such were the chief contents of the 
letter. Whether Barker believed in 
them fully himself, or whether he had 
dashed on a little extra coloring as to 
the simplification of affairs relative 
to the Great Wheal Bang, cannot be 
told. It may be that he feared hesi- 
tation still on the part of Mark Cray, 
and wished to get him at once over. 
In point of fact, Mark’s presence was 
absolutely necessary to the winding- 
up. 

Mark yielded without the slightest 
hesitation. If Mark Cray had confi- 
dence in any one living being, it was 
Barker. He forthwith set about the 
arrangements for his departure. It 
would take more than the five-pound 
note to clear all that he owed in Hon- 
fleur ; so he paid madame, and one or 
two trifles that might have proved 
productive of a little inconvenience at 


the time of starting, and got away bj 
the boat to Havre, and thence to 
London. 

But, oh ! the treachery of man 1 
When the steamer reached the me- 
tropolis, Mark Cray walked boldly 
ashore in the full glare of day, never 
so much as shading his eyes from the 
sun with those charming blue-hued 
spectacles you have heard of, never 
shrinking from the gaze of any mortal 
Londoner. Mark’s confidence in the 
good-fellowship of the Wheal Bang’s 
shareholders was restored, his trust 
in Barker implicit : if he felt a little 
timid on any score, it was connected 
with his clothes, which certainly did 
not give out quite so elegant a gloss 
as when they were spick and span 
new. Mark stood on the quay after 
landing, and looked round for Barker, 
whom he had expected would be there 
to meet him. 

Cab, sir ?” 

No,” said Mark. 

I’ll wait here a minute or two,” 
decided Mark to himself. Barker’s 
sure to come. I wrote him word 
what time we might expect to be in — 
though we are shamefully late. He 
can’t have been and gone again I” 

Somebody came up and touched 
him on the shoulder. Mr. Marcus 
Cray, I believe ?” 

Mark turned quickly “ Well ?” 
said he to the intruder, a shabby- 
looking man. 

You are my prisoner, sir.” 

What ?” cried Mark. 

*'You are my prisoner, sir,” re- 
peated the stranger, making a sign to 
another man to come closer. 

Mark hauled and kicked, and for a 
moment actually fought with his 
assailants. It was of course a sense- 
less thing to do ; but the shock was 
so sudden. He had felt himself as 
secure, stepping on these shores, as 
any proud foreign ambassador could 
have felt; and now to find himself 
treacherously pounced upon in this 
way was beyond every thing bitter. 
No wonder that for the minute Mark 
was mad. 

“ It can’t be !” he shrieked ; “you 


348 


OSWALD CRAY. 


have no warrant for this. I am free 
a-s air ; they wrote me word I was.” 

W'oul'd you like a cab, sir ?” in- 
quired the official, civilly, but not 
deigning to answer. “ You can have 
one if you like. Call one, Jim.” 

A cab was called ; the prisoner was 
helped into it and driven away, he 
was too bewildered to know where. 

And that’s how Mr. Mark Cray 
was welcomed to London. His rage 
was great, his sense of injury dread- 
ful. 

Only let me come across Barker !” 
he foamed. '' He shall suffer for 
this. A man ought to be hung for 
such treachery.” 

Mark Cray was, so far, mistaken. 
Barker was as innocent in the arrest 
as he was. An accident had pre- 
vented his going down to meet the 
Havre steamer. 


CHAPTER LIIL 

THE GALLANT CAPTAIN HOME AGAIN. 

Captain Davenal and his wife had 
been expected in England in Decem- 
ber — as you have heard ; but the time 
w^ent on, and February was at its 
close before they arrived. They had 
been compelled to land at the Cape 
in consequence of the illness of Mrs. 
Davenal, and had to remain there 
some time. She had come into a very 
large fortune on the death of her 
father ; a considerable portion of it 
was settled upon her, and the rest, a 
munificent sum, lapsed to her husband. 
So Captain Edward Davenal was once 
more at his ease in this world of 
changes. 

Gay, handsome, free, sunny, it might 
have been thought that not an hour’s 
care had ever been upon him. No 
allusion to a certain dark episode of 
the past escaped his lips when he and 
his sister met : there were no signs 
that he so much as remembered such 
a trouble had ever been. They were 
the present guests of Lady Reid, and 


would remain so for a short time. It 
was Captain Davenal’s intention to 
take a furnished house for a term. 
His leave of absence was for two 
years ; but they did not care to be 
stationary in London the whole of the 
period. Sara was charmed with his 
wife : a gentle, yielding, pretty thing, 
looking so young as to be a girl still,, 
and dividing her love between her 
husband and infant son, a fine young 
gentleman born at the Cape. A dread 
fear assailed Sara Davenal’s heart as 
she looked upon her ; for that curious 
matter, touching the young woman^ 
w^ho claimed to be connected with 
Captain Davenal, had never been 
cleared up. Not since the previous 
December had Sara once observed her 
approach the house ; but she had 
twice seen her in conversation with 
Neal at the end of the street, the last 
time being the very day of the arrival 
of Captain Davenal. It was alto- 
gether strange in Sara’s opinion : if 
the young woman fancied she really 
had a legal claim of the nature^ she 
mentioned on Captain Davenal, why 
had she not asserted it openly ? If 
she had no such claim, if she were an 
impostor, for what purpose had she 
put the claim forth ? There had been 
no demand for silence money ; no at- 
tempt at extortion. However it might 
be, Sara’s duty was plain, now Cap- 
tain Davenal had arrived, to acquaint 
him with the circumstances. 

“ I have some papers to give you,” 
she whispered to her brother at 
Lady Reid’s, the night of his arrival 
there. 

‘^Papers? Oh, yes, I suppose so. 

I shall be with you to-morrow.” 

So he had not quite forgotten the 
affair. On the conclusion of the mat- 
ter with Mr. Alfred King, Sara had 
sealed up certain papers and receipts, 
according to the written directions of 
Dr. Davenal : and these she waited to 
put into her brother’s hand. 

Mrs. Cray was with them still. She 
had taken to her bed-room entirely 
now, and was gradually dying. Mark 
was with her. His difficulty with the 
Great Wheal Bang’s shareholders, and 


OSWALD CRAY. 


349 


particularly with that one cautious 
shareholder who had saluted Mark so 
unpolitely on his landing from Havre, 
was virtually over : Mark enjoyed 
liberty of person again, and things 
were in process of adjustment. Miss 
Davenal so far overcame her repug- 
nance to Mark as to allow him to be 
in her house, but it was only in con- 
sideration of Caroline's dying state. 
They could do nothing for her. They 
painted her clothes with iodine as she 
lay on the sofa day after day before 
the chamber fire ; it was the only 
thing that brought any alleviation to 
the pain. 

It happened that Captain DavenaPs 
first visit to the house was paid at an 
opportune moment, in-so-far as that 
his interview with his sister was free 
from fear of interruption. Miss Dav- 
enal had gone to Lady Reid^s, to see 
and welcome the travellers, Neal in 
attendance upon her; and Caroline 
was asleep. Mark Cray was in the 
city ; he had to go there frequently, 
in connection with the winding up of 
the company and the concerns of the 
Great Wheal Bang. 

Captain Davenal came in, all joyous 
carelessness, telling Dorcas, who ad- 
mitted him, that she looked younger 
and handsomer than ever ; and poor 
Dorcas — who was not young at all, 
and had never been handsome in her 
life — felt set up in vanity for a month 
to come. Sara was in the drawing- 
room. It was the first time of their 
being alone, and Captain Davenal held 
her before him and scanned her face. 

What has made you get so thin 

Am I thin she returned. 

‘‘ Dreadfully so. I have been tell- 
ing Dorcas that she’s handsomer than 
ever, but I can’t say the same of you. 
What is the cause, Sara ?” 

I think people do get thin in 
London,” she replied with some eva- 
sion. But let me be rid of my 
charge, Edward.” 

She went to her bed-room and 
brought down Dr. DavenaPs desk. 
To Edward’s surprise, he saw that it 
was bound round with a broad tape 
and sealed. When Sara had placed 


the papers in the desk, received from 
Mr. Alfred King, she had immediately 
sealed up the desk in this manner ; a 
precaution against its being opened. 

What’s that for ?” exclaimed Cap- 
tain Davenal, in his quick way, as he 
recognized the desk and to whom it 
had belonged. Did my father leave 
it so ?” 

Sara replied by telling him her sus- 
picions of the desk’s having been 
opened ; and that she had deemed it 
well to secure it against any future 
inroads when once those papers were 
inclosed in it. 

But who would touch the desk ?” 
he asked. “ For what purpose ? Was 
young Dick at home at the time ?” 

Dick was not at home. But Dick 
would not touch a desk. I would not 
answer for Dick where a jam cupboard 
is concerned ; but in any thing of con- 
sequence Dick’s as honorable as the 
day. I suspected Neal, Edward.” 

Neal I” 

I did. I feel half ashamed to say 
so. Do you remember telling me 
that papa had a suspicion, or doubt, 
whether Neal had not visited some of 
his letters ?” 

1 remember it. I thought my 
father was wrong. Neal I Why, 
Sara, I’d as soon suspect myself.” 

‘‘Well, I can only tell you the 
truth — that when I found cause to 
fear this desk had been surreptitiously 
opened, my doubts turned to Neal. 
You see, we have no one about us 
but him and Dorcas ; and Dorcas I 
am certain is trustworthy. But I 
admit that it was in consequence of 
what you told me that I cast any 
doubt on Neal. However it may 
have been, I deemed it well to secure 
the desk afterwards.” 

She had been opening the desk as 
she spoke, and she took from it a 
sealed packet and handed it to Captain 
Davenal. He opened it at once, and 
glanced over its contents, two or three 
papers, one by one, slightly drawing 
in his lips. 

“ What a shame I” he burst forth. 

She did not like to ask questions. 
She only looked at him. 


350 


OSWALD CRAY. 


That they should have hied, my 
father in this manner. Scoundrels I 
I was away, therefore the game was 
in their own hands. Did you read 
these papers, Sara 

I was obliged to read them ; to 
see that they tallied with copies that 
papa left. He left written instructions 
that I should do so.” 

“ To whom was this money paid ?” 
To Mr. Alfred King. Don’t you 
see the receipts ?” 

'' I’d walk ten miles before break- 
fast any morning to see the fellow 
hung. It’s what he’ll come to.” 

He told me that he and you had 
once been friends,” she said, in a half 
whisper. 

^‘And so we were. I believed in 
the fellow; I had no suspicion that 
he was a villain, and I let him^draw 
me into things from which I could not 
extricate myself. I was a fool ; and 
I had to pay for it.” 

In Sara’s inmost heart there arose 
unbidden a rebellious thought : that 
others had had to pay for it ; not 
Captain Davenal. 

''Did it affect my father’s health, 
this business,” he inquired, in a low 
tone. 

" I fear it did/^ she replied, feeling 
that she could not avoid the confession. 
"I am sure it affected him mentally. 
There was a great change in him from 
that night.” 

Captain Davenal folded the papers 
slowly and pushed them into his 
waistcoat pocket, in his usual careless 
fashion. "What a fool I was!” he 
muttered ; " and what a rogue was 
that other !” 

" Are they safe there, Edward ?” 

" Safe enough until I get home. 
They will be burnt, then, except this 
final receipt. Oh, if my father had 
but lived ! I could at least have repaid 
him his pecuniary loss. It took all 
he left behind him, I suppose, to 
satisfy it ?” 

"Yes: all.” 

" He told me he feared it would, or 
nearly all, in the letter he wrote me 
when he was dying. Did things 
realize well ?” 


" ISTo, very badly. There was not 
enough to satisfy the claim by two 
hundred pounds. Finally, Aunt Bet- 
tina advanced that.” 

" Does she know of this ?” he ex- 
claimed, in a startled tone. 

"Ko, I kept it from her. It was 
difficult to do, but I contrived it.” 

"You are a brave girl, my sister! 
I don’t know who would have acted 
as you have ! All this trouble upon 
you, and never to worry me with it 
in your letters ! — never to ask me for 
money to help in the need !” 

" I thought you had none to give,” 
she simply said. 

" True enough : I had none. But 
most sisters would have asked for it. 
I shall repay, at once Aunt Bettina ; 
I shall repay more gradually, to you 
the half of what my father possessed 
before this trouble was brought by me 
upon him. What do you say ? — my 
wife’s money ? Tush, child ! do you 
know the amount of the fortune we 
have come into ? Compared to that, 
it will be but a drop of water in the 
ocean. If I did not repay it to you, 
she would.” 

Sara looked up. 

" My wife knows all. I told her 
every word.” 

" Oh Edward ! Before your mar- 
riage 

"Not before. I suppose I ought 
to have done so, but it would have 
taken a greater amount of moral 
courage than I possessed. I couldnH 
risk the losing her. I told her par- 
tially a short time after our marriage : 
the full particulars I did not give her 
until last night.” 

Last night ! Sara was surprised. 

" She fell in love with you yester- 
day, Sara, and I thought it well to let 
her know what you really were — how 
true you had been to me.” 

Sara was silent. It was in her 
nature to be true ; and, as she believed, 
it was in her nature to he able to 
suffer. 

" There were times when I felt 
tempted to wish I had stayed at home 
and battled with it,” resumed Captain 
Davenal, after a pause. " But in that 


OSWALD CRAY. 


351 


case the scandal would probably have 
gone forth to the world. As it was, 
no living being knew of it, save you 
and my father. 

*'And Mr. Alfred King,^’ she said. 
Another name also occurred to her, 
but she did not mention it — that of 
Oswald Cray. 

'^Alfred King ? Sara, my dear, I 
don^t care to enter into particulars 
with you, but he was with me in the 
mess ; more morally guilty, though 
less legally so, than I was. He has 
never told it, I can answer for, for his 
own sake.’^ 

He always spoke to me of being 
only a sort of agent in the affair,’^ she 
said. He intimated that the money 
was due to other parties.^’ 

Was due from him, then. But it 
is over and done with: let it drop. 
And now, Sara, you must allow me to 
ask you a personal question : are you 
still engaged to Oswald Cray 

The demand was so unexpected, 
the subject so painful, that Sara felt 
the life-blood leave her heart for her 
face. “I am not engaged to Oswald 
Cray,’^ she said in a low tone. I — 
I cannot say that I ever was engaged 
to him.” 

A pause. But — surely there was 

some attachment I” 

^^A little : in the old days. It is 
very long ago, now. How did you 
know of it ?” 

Oswald Cray himself told me. It 
was the evening we went up to town 
together after Caroline’s wedding. 
He knew I was going out immedi- 
ately with the regiment, and he gave 
me a hint of how it was between you. 
Only a hint ; nothing more. I sup- 
pose — I suppose,” more slowly added 
Captain Davenal, that this miserable 
business of mine broke it off. I con- 
clude when Oswald found, at my 
father’s death, that you had no money, 
he declined the compact. It’s the 
way of the world. ” 

Not so. No. I do not think 
money, or the want of it, would have 
any influence on Oswald Cray. In 
this case it certainly had not. We 
had parted before papa died.” 


What then was the cause, Sara ?” 

Should she tell him ? — that it was 
his (Edward’s) conduct broke it off ? 
Better not, perhaps ; it could do no 
earthly good, and would be only add- 
ing pain to pain. 

'' It is a thing of the past now, 
Edward ; let it remain so. The 
cause that parted us was one that 
could not be got over. We are 
friends still, though we do not often 
meet. More than that we can never 
be.” 

Captain Davenal was sorry to hear 
it. Thoughtless and imprudent as^a 
he was by nature himself, he could 
not but be aware of the value of Os- 
wald Cray. Such a man would make 
the happiness — and guard it — of any 
woman. 

I think I had better mention one 
fact to you, Edward,” she resumed, 
after some moments given to the 
matter in her own mind. ^‘You 
have been assuming that no one was 
cognizant of that business of yours 
except papa, myself, and Mr. Alfred 
King ; but ” 

No other living soul was cog- 
nizant of it,” interrupted Captain 
Davenal. My father’s promptitude 
stopped it.” 

Oswald Cray knew of it.” 

Impossible,” he said, recovering 
from a pause of surprise. 

He did indeed. I am not sure 
that he knew the exact particulars, 
but he knew a very great deal. I 
believe — I fancy — that he had gath- 
ered even a worse impression of it than 
the case actually warranted.” 

Captain Davenal was incredulous. 
From whom did he learn it ?” 

I cannot say. I have always 
feared that it must have been known 
to others.” 

I tell you, Sara, that beyond you 
and my father, and King, nobody in 
the world knew of it. You are under 
some mistake. Oswald Cray could 
not have known of it.” 

Nay then, Edward, as it has come 
so far, I will tell you the truth. Os- 
wald Cray did know of it, and it was 
that and nothing else that caused us 


OSWALD CRAY. 


852 

to part. He — he — thought, after 
that, that I was no fit wife for him,’’ 
she added in a low tone of pain. 
‘‘ And in truth I was not.” 

A pause of distress. Unfit as my 
sister ?” 

‘^Yes. I suppose he feared that 
the crime might at any time be dis- 
closed to the world.” 

'‘But how could he have known 
it ?” reiterated Captain Davenal, the 
one surprise overwhelming every 
other emotion in his mind. " King 
I know would not tell ; for his own 
sake he dared not ; and we may be 
very sure my father did not. He 
sacrificed himself to retain it a se- 
cret. ” 

"That Oswald Cray knew of it, I 
can assure you,” she repeated. " He 
must have known of it as soon — or 
almost as soon — as we did. From 
that night that you came down to 
Hallingham in secret his behavior 
changed ; and a little later, when a 
sort of explanation took place between 
us, he spoke to me of what had come 
to his knowledge. I know no more.” 

"Well, it is beyond my comprehen- 
sion,” said Captain Davenal ; " it 
passes belief. Good Heavens ! if Os- 
wald Cray knew it, where’s my secur- 
ity that others do not ? I must look 
into this.” 

He was about to go off in impulsive 
baste, probably to seek Oswald Cray, 
but Sara detained him. The uncer- 
tain doubt, the dread lying most 
heavy on her heart was not spoken 
yet. 

, " Don’t go, Edward. You will re- 

gard me as a bird of ill-omen, I fear, 
but I have something to say to you on 
a subject as unpleasant as this, though 
of a totally dijfferent nature.” 

"Ko crime, I hope,” he remarked in 
a joking tone, as he re-seated himself. 
It was utterly impossible for Edward 
Davenal to remain sober and serious 
long. 

" It would be a crime — if it were 
true.” 

Well, say on, Sara; I am all at- 
tention. I have been guilty of a 
thousand-and-one acts of folly in my 


life ; never but of one crime. And 
that I was drawn into.” 

Captain Davenal did right to bid her 
" say on,” for she seemed to have no 
inclination to say any thing, or else to 
be uncertain in what words to clothe 
it. In truth it was a decidedly un- 
pleasant topic, and her color went and 
came. 

" I would not mention it, Edward, 
if I were not obliged ; if I did not fear 
consequences for you now you have 
come home,” she began. " It has 
been weighing me down a long, long 
while, and I have had to bear it, say- 
ing nothing ” 

" Has some private debt turned up 
against me?” he cried hastily. "I 
thought I had not one out in the Eu- 
ropean world. I’ll settle it to-mor- 
row, Sara, whatever it may be.” 

"It is not debt at all. It is ” 

Sara stopped, partly with emotion, 
partly from her excessive reluctance 
to approach the topic. Should it 
prove to be altogether some mistake, 
a feeling of shame would rest upon 
her for having whispered it. 

"It’s what? Why don’t you go 
on?” 

" I must go on if I am to tell you,” 
she resumed, rallying her courage. 
" Did you ever — before you went out 
— marry anybody ?” 

" Did I — what ?” he returned, look- 
ing up with an exceedingly amused 
expression on his face. 

" Oh, Edward, you heard.” 

"If I heard I didn’t understand. 
What do you mean ? Why do you 
ask me so foolish a question ?” 

"You have not answered it,” she 
continued in a low voice. 

Captain Davenal noted for the first 
time, the changing hue of her face, the 
troubled eye, the shrinking, timid 
manner. His mood changed to seri- 
ousness. 

" Sara, what do you mean ? Did I 
marry anybody before I went out, you 
ask ? I neither married anybody nor 
promised marriage. I — Halloa I you 
don’t mean I am about to have a case 
of breach of promise brought against 
me ?” 


OSWALD CRAY. 


353 


The notion was so amusing to 
Captain Davenal that he burst into a 
laugh. Sara shook her head, and 
when his laugh had subsided she bent 
her cheek upon her hand and related 
to him calmly and quietly what had 
occurred. The Captain was exces- 
sively amused : he could not be 
brought to regard the tale in any 
other light than as a joke. 

‘^What do you say the lady’s name 
was ? Catherine what 

‘^Catherine Wentworth.” 

Catherine Wentworth he de- 
liberated. I never heard the name 
before in my life ; never knew any 
one bearing it. Why, Sara, you do 
not mean to say this has seriously 
troubled you ?” 

It has very seriously troubled me. 
At times, what with one dread and 
another, I seemed to have more upon 
me than I could bear. I had no one 
to whom I could tell the trouble and 
the doubt : I dared not write it to 
you, lest your wife should get hold of 
the letter.” 

And if she had ? What then ?” 

^^If she had ?” repeated Sara. Do 
you forget the charge ?” 

“ It’s too laughable for me to forget 
it. Rose would have laughed at it 
with me. Sara, my dear, rely upon 
it this has arisen from some queer 
mistake.” 

His open countenance, the utter 
absence of all symptom of fear, the 
cool manner in which he treated it, 
caused Sara Davenal to breathe a 
sigh of relief. Half her doubts had 
vanished. 

“ The strange thing is, why she 
should make the charge: why she 
should say she was your wife. It 
was not done to extort money, for she 
has never asked for a farthing. She 
said papa knew of the marriage.” 

“ Did she !” was the retort, deliv- 
ered lightly. ** Did she tell all this 
to you ?” 

Not to me. I have never spoken 
to her ; I told you so. What I have 
learnt, I learnt through Neal.” 

Captain Davenal paused in re- 
flection. “ Who knows but that gen- 

22 


tleman may be at the bottom of it ?” 
he said at length. If he opens 
desks I — don’t say he does, I say if 
he does — he might get up this tale.” 

''And his motive ?” returned Sara, 
not agreeing with the proposition. 

"Nay, I don’t know.” 

"But Neal did not come forward 
with the tale. It was in consequence 
of what I accidentally heard her say 
that I questioned Neal : and I must 
do him the justice to declare that it 
was with very great reluctance he 
would answer me. I heard Neal tell 
her, apparently in answer to a ques- 
tion, that there was no doubt Captain 
Davenal was married ; that he had 
married a Miss Reid, an heiress. She 
replied that she would have satis- 
faction, no matter what punishment it 
brought him (you) to.” 

" And Neal afterwards assured you 
that she was Captain Davenal’s wife ?” 

"Neal assured me that she said she 
was. Neal himself said he did not 
believe her to be so : he thought there 
must be some mistake. She declared 
she had been married to you nearly a 
twelvemonth before you quitted Eu- 
rope, and that Dr. Davenal knew of 
it.” 

" The story-telling little hussy !” 

"Edward, I confess to you that I 
never so much as thought of its not 
being true in that first moment ! I 
think fear must have taken possession 
of me and overpowered my judg- 
ment.” 

"You should have written to me, 
Sara.” 

"I have told you why I did not; 
lest the letter should fall into the 
hands of your wife. And I believe 
that a dread of its truth made me 
shrink from approaching it. That 
very same day I saw the young per- 
son come out of the War Office. I 
did not know, and don’t know, 
whether it is the proper place to 
lodge complaints against officers, but 
I suppose she had been there to lodge 
one against you.” 

" And you Lave seen her here since, 
at the house ?” 

" Occasionally. She has never been 


354 


OSWALD CRAY. 


troublesome. She has come appar- 
ently to say a word or two to Neal. 
I have never questioned him upon 
the visit : I have dreaded the subject 
too much. Only yesterday I saw 
Neal speaking with her at the corner 
of the street. 

Well, Sara, I shall sift this.’' 

She lifted her head. “ Yes 

“ I shall. It would not have been 
pleasant had the rumor reached the 
ears of my wife.” 

He walked to the window and stood 
there a moment or two, a flush upon 
his face, a frown upon his brow. 
When he turned round again he was 
laughing. 

Did Aunt Bett hear of this ?” . 

. Oh, no.” 

“ She'^d have taken it for granted it 
was true. Had anybody told her in 
the old days that I had married six- 
teen wives, or set the town on fire 
with a purposely-lighted torch. Aunt 
Bett would have believed it of me. 
But, Sara, I am surprised at you.” 

She glanced at him with a faint 
smile. Not liking to say that the 
dreadful business, the secret of that 
past night, which had no doubt helped 
to send Dr. Davenal to his grave, had 
at the time somewhat shaken her faith 
in her gallant brother. But for that 
terrible blow, she bad never given a 
moment’s credit to this. 


CHAPTER LIV. 

LIGHT. 

Captain Davenal had made light 
of the matter to his sister. Knowing 
how unfounded was the charge, the 
whole thing struck him as being so 
absurd, so improbable, that his mind 
could but receive it as a jest. Never- 
theless, upon reflection he saw that it 
might prove a subject of serious an- 
noyance : such charges, especially if 
maliciously made and well-planned, 
sometimes cost a world of trouble in 
their refutation. 


He had said it was his intention to 
sift it. Sara suggested that he should 
do what she had shrunk from doing — 
question Neal. Captain Davenal hesi- 
tated. If there were any foundation 
for his suspicion that Mr. Neal might 
have had something to do with making 
the charge, it would not perhaps be 
policy to speak to that gentleman in 
the present stage of the affair. Better 
try by some other means to find out 
who the young woman was, and all 
about her. It is true that without the 
help of Neal, Captain Davenal did not 
see his way clear to do this : to seek 
for an unknown young woman in 
London, one to whom he had no clue, 
was something equivalent to that 
traditional search, the hunting for a 
needle in a pottle of hay, 

“ I wonder if Dorcas could tell us 
any thing about her ? he exclaimed, 
ringing the bell upon impulse, as he 
did most things. And when Dorcas 
appeared in answer to it, he plunged 
into a sea of questions that had only 
the effect of bewildering her. 

^‘You must know her, Dorcas,” 
interposed Sara. “ It is a young 
woman, rather nice-looking, who has 
come here occasionally to see Neal. 
She generally wears large shawls that 
trail on the ground. Captain Davenal 
has a reason for wishing to know who 
she is.” 

You must mean Mrs. Wentworth, 
Miss Sara.” 

“ Mrs. Wentworth I Is that her 
name ?” repeated Sara, feeling a sort 
of relief that the servant had not said 
Mrs. Davenal. 

That’s her name, miss. She is an 
officer’s wife, and is in some trouble 
about him. I believe Neal is her 
uncle.” 

Sara looked up. “ Neal told my 
aunt that the young person was not 
his niece.” 

Well, I don’t know,” said Dorcas ; 

I think she is his niece : at any rate, 
I have heard her call him uncle. I 
heard her call him uncle no longer ago 
than last night. Miss Sara.” 

Where was that ?” interposed Cap 
tain Davenal. 


OSWALD CRAY. 


355 


*^It was here, sir. She called to 
see Neal. I was passing down -stairs 
at the time from Mrs. Cray’s room, 
and it seemed to me that there was 
some dispute occurring between them. 
She asked Neal to tell her where 
Captain Da venal was staying, and 
Neal refused. He said she should not 
go troubling Captain Davenal.” 

A pause from all. Sara’s face grew 
troubled again. 

What did she want with me ?” 
asked the captain. 

** I don’t know, sir,” replied Dorcas. 

I only heard that much in passing. 
I was carrying Mrs. Cray’s tea-tray 
down.” 

*'Do you know where she lives, 
this Mrs. Wentworth ?” 

Not at all, sir. I have never 
known that.” 

Edward, she is evidently looking 
out for you 1” exclaimed Sara, as 
Dorcas retired. 

I hope and trust she is, and that 
she’ll speedily find me,” was the retort 
of Captain Davenal. Nothing should 
I like better than to find her. I have 
a great mind to ask Neal openly what 
it all is, and insist upon an answer.” 

There was no opportunity for fur- 
ther conversation then. Mark Cray 
came in. Captain Davenal did not 
think him improved in any way. 
There was less of openness in his 
manner than formerly, and he rather, 
appeared to evade Captain Davenal, 
quitting his presence as soon as he 
conveniently could. The next to enter 
was Miss Bettina. It was the first 
time she had met her nephew, and she 
was disposed to be cordial. Miss 
Bettina had gone forth that morning 
to visit his young wife, entertaining 
a secret prejudice against her, and she 
returned home liking her. The little 
baby had been named Richard, too, 
and that gratified her. 

A short while later, and Captain 
Davenal and his sister stood in the 
presence of this very young woman, 
Catherine Wentworth. In a room in 
Lady Reid’s house, when they reached 
it — ^for Sara walked home with him — 
she was waiting. She had gone 


there inquiring for Captain Davenal, 
and upon being told Captain Davenal 
was out, she asked to be allowed to 
wait for him. 

The sequel of this episode is so 
very matter-of-fact, so devoid of 
romance, that some of you, my readers, 
may think it might have been as well 
never to have introduced it. But, in 
that’ case, what would have become 
of the closing history of Neal ? It 
was quite necessary, if that gentleman 
was to have a faitKul biographer. 

Sara Davenal sat, the white strings 
of her bonnet untied, wiping the 
drops of moisture from her relieved 
brow. So intense was the relief, that 
when the first few moments of thank- 
fulness were past, she looked back 
with a feeling of anger that her mind’s 
peace for long, long months should 
have been disturbed so unneces- 
sarily. 

They were talking fast, this young 
woman and Captain Davenal. She 
had gone to Miss Davenal’s house 
over and over again to inquire after 
him ; she had handed Neal more than 
one letter to forward to him in India ; 
she had been at the house the previous 
night, demanding to know where the 
captain was staying, and saying she 
would see him ; and she had this 
morning found out his address at 
Lady Reid’s, and had waited until he 
came in. 

But all for a very innocent and legit- 
imate purpose. Mrs. Wentworth — 
and she was Mrs. Wentworth — had 
never seen Captain Davenal in her life 
before ; had never pretended that she 
had ; she was only seeking him now 
to get from him some information 
of her real husband. Sergeant Went- 
worth, of Captain Davenal’s regi- 
ment. 

One train of thought leads to 
another. Captain Davenal remem- 
bered now to have heard that the 
sergeant, a very respectable soldier, 
had voluntarily separated himself from 
his wife, and left her behind him in 
England when their regiment sailed 
for India, in consequence of some 
misconduct on her part. He stood 


OSWALD CRAY. 


356 

there face to face with the young 
woman, trying to reconcile this plain 
statement of facts with the account of 
past assertions related to him by 
Sara. 

'^You are Sergeant Wentworth’s 
wife, you say,” observed Captain 
Davenal, regarding her narrowly, 
watching every word that fell from 
her lips. If there had been any con- 
spiracy between her and Neal to 
undermine his sister’s peace, he felt 
that he should like to punish both of 
them. Sara had had enough of real 
troubles to bear, without wanting 
false ones brought upon her. 

“ Yes, I am,” she replied. She 
had a wonderfully pretty face, now 
that it could be seen without her veil, 
and her manners were pleasing — nay, 
lady-like. But still there was that 
look of general untidiness about her 
that Sara had noticed before, though 
she did not wear a shawl to-day, but 
a black cloth mantel, cut in the 
mode. 

“ May I ask if you ever allowed it 
to be understood that you were any- 
body else’s wife ?” rejoined Captain 
Davenal, putting the question in the 
most convenient form he could, and in 
a half jesting tone. 

Anybody else’s wife ?” she re- 
peated, as if not understanding. 

Ay ; mine, for instance.” 

Why, of course I never did. I 
don’t know what you mean, sir.’ 

“ Does Neal know you are Sergeant 
Wentworth’s wife ?” 

Oh, dear, yes. I have done noth- 
ing a long while but beseech of him 
to write to you, sir, and ask if you 
would speak in my behalf to Went- 
worth, and make him allow me more, 
or else let me go out to him in 
India.” 

Sara interposed. It might not be 
wise in her, but she could not help 
herself. I once accidently heard a 
conversation of yours with Neal. 
You were speaking of this gentleman. 
Captain Davenal ; it was the very day 
that we had heard news of his marriage 
with Miss Reid. I remember you 
said something to the effect that you 1 


would have satisfaction, cost what 
punishment it would to him. Did you 
allude to your husband ?” 

“Yes, I did,” the girl replied. 
“And I hope he will be punished 
yet. I remember the time, too. I 
had had a letter that morning from 
one of the women who went with the 
regiment, a soldier’s wife ; she spoke 
of my husband in it in a way that 
vexed me ; and she said, amidst other 
news, that their captain — Captain 
Davenal — had just got married. The 
letter put me up to think that perhaps 
Captain Davenal could do some good 
for me with my husband, and I came 
off at once to Neal and asked him. 
Neal said he should not trouble Cap- 
tain Davenal with any thing of the 
sort ; and the answer made me angry, 
and I reminded Mr. Neal that I could 
say one or two things about him that 
might not be pleasant, if I chose to be 
ill-natured ; and at last he promised 
to send a letter for me to Captain 
Davenal, inclosed in one from himself, 
if I liked to write and state the case. 
I remember quite well saying that I 
could have satisfaction somehow, no 
matter what the punishment to my 
husband. Did my letters ever reach 
you, ^r ? I wro+e two or three.” 

Never.” 

“ Like enough Neal never sent 
them,” she exclaimed, with an angry 
toss. “ He said he did ; and I have 
been always asking him whether he 
received no answer for me.” 

“Is Neal your uncle, Mrs. Went- 
worth ?” 

“ I call him so sometimes, sir, when 
I want to be pleasant with him, but 
in point of fact he is no real. relation. 
My step-mother is his sister ; and that 
makes him a sort of uncle-in-law.” 

“And you have not — excuse my 
pressing the question, Mrs. Went- 
worth, but I have a reason for it — 
given Neal reason to suppose that 
you were ever married to any one 
except Sergeant Wentworth ?” re- 
sumed Captain Davenal. 

“ Never in my life, sir,” she re- 
plied, and her accent of truth was 
unmistakable. “ Say to Neal that I 


OSWALD CRAY. 


357 


was married to anybody else ! What 
for ? It would be childish to say it ; 
he knows quite well that I am Ser- 
geant Wentworth’s wife.” 

The falsehood then had been Neal’s ! 
^Captain Davenal glanced at Sara. 
But the sergeant’s wife spoke again. 

Could you interest yourself for 
me with Wentworth, sir ?” 

Ah, I don’t know. It is a ticklish 
thing, you see, to interfere between 
man and wife,” added the captain, a 
jesting smile upon his lips. ** How 
does the old proverb run ? — ^ that any 
man who does, gets his teeth drawn 
by both parties, the upper ones by 
the wife, and the lower ones by the 
husband.’ What is your grievance 
against Wentworth ?” 

Mrs. Wentworth entered on her 
grievances ; a whole catalogue. She 
required that her husband should send 
for her to be with him in India, or 
else that he should make her a better 
allowance, so that she could live as 
a lady.” She knew he got plenty of 
prize money she said, for she had 
been told so ; and she finished up with 
stating that she had been to the War 
Office, and to half a dozen other offices 
to complain of him, and could get no 
redress. 

Well,” said Captain Davenal, 
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I will 
write to Sergeant Wentworth — a man 
for whom I have great respect — and 
inquire his version of the quarrel be- 
tween you. We should always hear 
both sides of the question you know, 
Mrs. Wentworth. When I get his 
answer, you shall hear from me. To 
be candid with you, I must say that 
I don’t think that Wentworth is one 
to allow of much interference. He 
has good judgment, and he likes to 
exercise it. But I will write to 
him.” 

“ And you’ll promise to see me 
again, sir, in spite of Neal ? What 
his olDjection was, I don’t know, but 
he did all he could to prevent my 
seeing you.” 

“ I don’t think you need fear Neal’s 
prevention for the future in regard to 


seeing me,” said Captain Davenal, in 
a significant tone, as he civilly bowed 
out Mrs. Wentworth. 

“ Well, Sara, and what do you think 
of Neal now ?” 

“ I can’t understand it ; I can’t 
understand why he should have said 
it, or what his motive was,” slowly 
replied Sara. “ Oh, if he only knew 
the cruel days and nights it caused 
me to pass 1 Shall you tell Aunt Bet- 
tina of Neal’s falsity ?” 

“ Tell her !” repeated Captain Dav- 
enal. “ Do you think I can allow her 
and you to be any longer under the 
same roof with a villain such as 
Neal ?” 

Not to Miss Bettinqi however, did 
Captain Davenal at once take his way, 
but to Parliament Street. The rev- 
elation of Sara that morning — that 
the one dark episode in his own past 
history had been known to Oswald 
Cray — was troubling Edward Dave- 
nal’s mind far more than any sense of 
the inconvenience wrought by Mr. 
Neal. 

Oswald was at home, and came up 
to his sitting room to welco^ne Captain 
Davenal. A few words of greeting, 
and then the captain plunged whole- 
sale, without any ceremony or prepara- 
tion, into the object -which had brought 
him. 

“ I have come to ask you a ques- 
tion,” he began, dropping his voice to 
a confidential whisper. “ How did 
you become acquainted with that 
miserable business of mine ?” 

“ With what miserable business ?” 
returned Oswald, in surprise. 

“ Don’t you recall what I mean ? 
That affair that swamped me. Or, 
I’m sure I may better say, swamped 
my father. The — the — those bills, 
you know.” 

Oswald did not know in the least. 
And said so. 

“ Hang it, Cray,” exclaimed the 
captain, “ why force a man to speak 
out? Those forged bills that I put 
into circulation, and couldn’t get back 
again.” 

“ I protest I do not know what you 


OSWALD CRAY. 


358 

are talking of,” returned Oswald. ** I 
don’t understand what it is you would 
ask me.” 

‘‘ I only ask how you became ac- 
quainted with the affair.” 

I never was acquainted with the 
affair : with any affair such as you 
allude to,” persisted Oswald. I am 
not acquainted with it now.” 

'' Do you mean to say that you did 
not become cognizant of that dreadful 
trouble I got into before leaving Eng- 
land ? — The signing of those bills ?” 

I never heard of it in my life. I 
never heard or knew that you were in 
any trouble whatever.” 

Captain Davenal sat staring at Os- 
wald. How reconcile this denial 
with Sara’s positive assurance of that 
day? You are telling me truth?” 
he cried with a perplexed air. 

Entire truth,” said Oswald. ‘‘Why 
should I not ?” 

“ What then could Sara mean ?” 
debated Captain Davenal aloud. “She 
tells me that you did know of it.” 

“ Sara tells you so ?” 

“ She does. She says that — I don’t 
see that I need scruple to speak,” 
broke off Captain Davenal, “ it’s all 
over and done with, I suppose. Sara 
says it was your knowledge of the 
affair that caused the breaking off of 
the engagement between yourself and 
her.” 

Oswald Cray was silent. A doubt 
crossed him of whether the gallant 
captain had received some sabre-cut 
or sun-stroke in India, to affect his 
brain. Captain Davenal noted his 
puzzled look, and strove to be more 
explanatory. 

“When you and I were returning 
to town from Hallingham the night 
of Caroline’s wedding, you hinted 
that there existed an attachment or 
engagement between you and Sara. 
For the first time I spoke of this to 
Sara this morning. She admitted 
that something of the kind had ex- 
isted, but said it was over : and I saw 
that the subject was painful — one she 
wished to avoid. So I dropped it. 
Afterwards, in speaking of this worse 
business of mine, I observed that it 


was known to three people only : my 
father, Alfred King, and Sara; but 
Sara interrupted me, saying that it 
was known to Oswald Cray. I dis- 
puted the fact; I said it could not 
have been known to you, but she per- 
sisted in her assertion, and finally 
confessed that it was in consequence 
of its coming to your knowledge that 
you broke off the engagement to her, 
deeming she was not worthy to be- 
come your wife. Pardon me yet a 
moment when I state that I am not 
here to question the decision ; I don’t 
wish to enter upon it at all, except to 
say that many would have done as 
you did, after what 7, her brother, had 
been guilty of. All that is apart from 
the business, and I am only telling 
you how it came out. Sara said that 
it was the sole cause of its breaking 
off the engagement, and that you 
must have known of it almost as soon 
as — as my father knew. Now I want 
you to tell me, Mr. Oswald Cray, how 
and whence that affair came to your 
knowledge. Have I made myself 
clear ?” 

“ Perfectly clear, so far as explana- 
tion goes ; but it is nothing but ob- 
scurity to me, for all that. In the 
first place, allow me to assure you 
that I never knew before now that 
you were in any trouble whatever. 
This is my first intimation of it.” 

“ And was it not that knowledge 
that caused you and Sara to part ?” 

“ It was not. How could it have 
been, when I assure you I did not 
possess the knowledge ? A — a great 
trouble, of which I would prefer not to 
speak, did lead to the parting, but it 
was entirely unconnected with you.” 

“ Well, this is Greek,” returned 
Captain Davenal. “ There was no 
other trouble connected with the fam- 
ily, except mine. I suppose you 
mean that it was connected with 
them ?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ With which of them ? There was 
no scape-goat in it except me.” 

“ It was connected with Dr. Dave- 
nal,” said Oswald reluctantly* “I 
cannot say more.” 


OSWALD CRAY. 


With my father ? Nonsense, if 
you mean any thing wrong. A more 
upright man never breathed. Fancy 
him sending forth bad bills 

could not fancy him doing so,^’ 
replied Oswald. “ The matter had 
nothing to do with money. 

“ I’ll lay all I am worth it had to 
do with me, with my business,” im- 
pulsively spoke Captain Davenal. I 
will tell you how it was ” 

^^Nay, it is not worth while,” was 
Oswald Cray’s interruption, as he 
thought how very different a thing was 
Lady Oswald’s unhappy death from 
the topics under discussion. ‘ ‘ Believe 
me, you had not, and could not have 
had, any thing to do with the real 
question.” 

But I’ll tell you now I have be- 
gun. I and my choice friend, as I 
thought him then,” Captain Davenal 
spoke with scornful bitterness, got 
into an awful mess together, and could 
not get out of it. No matter whether 
it was gambling or horse-racing, or 
what not ; money we were compelled 
to have. King assured me on his 
honor that in three weeks’ time he 
should be in possession of several 
thousand pounds, if we could only 
stave off exposure until then, and in 
an evil hour I yielded to his persuasion, 
and wrote my father’s name. The 
suggestion was King’s, the persuasion 
was King’s, the full assurance that all 
would be well was King’s. I don’t 
say this in extenuation of myself : the 
guilt and madness of yielding were all 
mine. Well, the days went on, and 
when the time came, and the thing was 
on the point of exploding. King had 
not got the thousands he had counted 
on; moreover, I found that his expec- 
tation of getting them had been from 
the first very vague indeed, and we 
had a desperate quarrel. The sneak 
turned round, threatened me with ex- 
posure, with ruin, and I had to go 
down and confess the truth to my 
father. He saved me. Saved me at 
the sacrifice of all he had, and — I fear 
— of his life.” 

There was a pause. Oswald had 


359 

grown strangely interested. Captain 
Davenal continued. 

I shall never forget the effect it 
had upon him, never, never. I speak 
only of the hour of the communication ; 
I never saw him after that. I told 
him there might be trouble with these 
bills, to get them at all ; that, even 
with the money in hand to redeem 
them, I was not sure the consequences 
could be averted from me. I saw the 
change pass over his face ; the gray, 
scared look ; and it did not quit it 
again.” 

Where did you see him ?” 

At Hallingham. I went down at 
some peril, after leave had been re- 
fused me at headquarters, getting to 
Hallingham about eleven o’clock on a 
Sunday night. I stayed an hour or 
so with my father in his study, and 
then went back to the station again, 
for I had to be at my post on duty 
the following morning. No one at 
home knew of my visit. I tapped at 
my father’s study window and he let 
me in. Before I left, I asked to see 
Sara. I knew quite well, though they 
did not, that I should not go down 
again, and I did not care to leave for 
years without saying a word to her, 
so my father fetched her down from 
her room. We did not tell her the 
particulars, only that I had been doing 
something wrong, was in danger, and 
that my visit to Hallingham must be 
kept quiet. My poor father I I re- 
member his asking in a burst of feel- 
ing what he had done that all this 
trouble should fall upon him. Another 
great trouble had befallen him that 
night in the death of Lady Oswald.” 

Yes ?” said Oswald with a calm 
manner but a beating heart. His 
thoughts were in that long past night, 
and Neal’s description of it. 

“ It was very dreadful,” resumed 
Captain Davenal, alluding to the mat- 
ter of Lady Oswald. “ My father 
was sadly cut up. Mark Cray had 
killed her, through administering the 
chloroform.” 

Oswald felt his heart stand still, his 
face flushed with a burning heat. He 


860 


<• 

OSWALD CRAY. 


moved nearer to Captain Davenal, 
his voice quiet still. 

Did you say Mark administered 
the chloroform 

It was Mark. Yes. My father 
said he had especially forbidden Mark 
Cray to give her chloroform. Mark 
in the course of the day had proposed 
doing it, but the doctor W’arned him 
that chloroform would not do for Lady 
Oswald. When all was ready, he 
(my father) had to carry Lady Os- 
wald’s maid from the chamber in a 
faintiug-fit, and when he got back to 
it he found Mark had administered 
the chloroform, which he had taken 
with him surreptitiously, and was 
commencing the operation. The doc- 
tor said he could not make out Mark 
Cray^ that night. He was beginning 
the operation in so unskilful, so un- 
surgeon-like a manner that my father 
had to push him away as he would 
have pushed a child, and go on with 
it himself. But they could not re- 
cover Lady Oswald.’^ 

Oswald made no remark. He felt 
as one stunned. 

“ It struck me as being a most 
shocking thing,” continued Captain 
Da venal. I remarked to my father 
that it seemed like murder, and he 
said yes, he supposed the world would 
call it such.” 

“ But why did not Dr. Davenal de- 
clare the truth — that it was Mark who 
had giv^en the chloroform ?” inter- 
rupted Oswald. Why suffer him- 
self to rest under the imputation ?” 

What imputation ? There was 
no imputation to lie under. All the 
world supposed the chloroform had 
been rightly and properly admin- 
istered, according to the best judg- 
ment of both of them.” 

True ; true. Oswald Cray had 
been speaking in accordance with his 
own private knowledge, not with 
publicly-known facts. 

“ My father kept the secret for 
Mark Cray’s sake. If it went forth 
to the world, he said it would blight 
Mark’s professional career for life. 
He told me the facts, but he intended 
to keep them from all others, and he 


warned me not to divulge them. I 
never did. I am not sure that I 
should feel justified in telling even 
you now, but that Mark is no longer 
in his profession. My poor father 
made the remark that they were two 
heavy secrets for his breast to keep, 
mine and Mark Cray’s.” 

The murmur of the words fell upon 
Oswald’s ear, but he was as one who 
heard them not. A weighty amount 
of self-reproach was rising up within 
him. 


CHAPTER LY. 

THE BARGAIN SEALED. 

The scales so long obscuring Oswald 
Cray’s eyes had fallen from them, and 
he saw the past in its true colors. 
The one wondering question that 
seemed to press upon him now was, 
how he could ever have doubted Dr. 
Davenal. Above his own self-re- 
proach ; above the bitter feeling of 
repentance for the wrong he had dealt 
out to her whom he best loved on 
earth ; above his regrets for the late 
years wasted in a miserable illusion ; 
was his remorse for having so mis- 
judged that good man, misjudged him 
even to his grave. He saw it all 
now : how when he questioned Dr. 
Davenal about his motives for admin- 
istering the fatal medicine, he had 
taken the odium upon himself for 
Mark’s sake : not even to him, his 
brother, would he, in bis loving kind- 
ness, betray Mark. 

Never had the pride, the self- 
esteem, of Oswald Cray received a 
blow like unto this. He had jfiumed 
himself on his superiority ; he had 
cast off Dr. Davenal as one unworthy 
of him ; he had dared in his self- 
sufficiency to cast off Sara. Her 
father was a man of suspicion, and 
therefore she was no fit mate for him I 
Whereas Oswald now learnt that it 
was his own brother who was the 
offender. Dr. Davenal and his daugh- 
ter were the victims. The full value, 


OSWALD CRAY. 


361 


the Christian conduct of that good 
man was patent to him now ; the 
patient endurance of Sara became 
clear to him. 

He lifted his hat and wiped the 
moisture from his brow as he walked 
through the streets, all these consid- 
erations doing battle in his brain. 
The winter^s day was cold, but Os- 
wald’s brow was hot; hot with in- 
ward fever. He was on his way to 
Miss Davenal’s, to seek a conference 
with his half-brother : there were one 
or two questions he would put to him. 
He had taken his hat and come out 
the moment Captain Davenal left him : 
business and all else gave way before 
this. 

Mark Cray came to him in the 
dining-room. Mark found it (between 
ourselves) rather tiresome to sit in 
his wife’s sick room, and Mark was 
very apt to doze asleep at his post. 
It was from a charming dream of 
greatness — in which some grand 
scheme of Barker’s had succeeded, 
and he and that gentleman were sail- 
ing about the atmosphere in a tri- 
umphal car of gold, looking down 
with complacency on the poor toiling 
mortals in the world below — that 
Dorcas had aroused him. Mr. Oswald 
Cray was in the dining-parlor waiting 
to see him : and Mark, after a stare 
at the girl, descended, pushing back 
his clustering hair, which had dis- 
arranged itself in his sleep. 

Oswald was not sitting ; he stood 
near the fire ; and when he spoke it 
was in a quiet tone. 

I have a question to ask you, 
Mark. It relates to the past. Who 


Oh, never mind the past,” in- 
terrupted Mark, in. a half testy, half 
careless sort of tone. I’m sure 
there’s enough worry in the present, 
without going back to that of the 
past. I wish that horrid mine had 
been sunk a thousand fathoms deep 
before I had had any thing to do with 
it. I dare say I shall pay you back 
some time 1” 

“ It is not about the mine I wish to 
speak to you, or of payment either,” 


calmly rejoined Oswald. But, Mark, 
I want the truth from you — the truth, 
mind — upon another subject. It was 
you, was it not, who gave the chloro- 
form to Lady Oswald ?” 

Mark made no reply, either truth- 
ful or otherwise. The question was 
so exceedingly unlike any he had ex- 
pected that he only stared. 

It was supposed I know at the 
time to have been administered by 
Dr. Davenal. But I have reason to 
believe that it was administered by 
yourself, during his temporary ab- 
sence from the chamber, and against 
his sanction. Was it so, Mark ?” 

I suppose you heard this from the 
doctor himself at the time ?” was 
Mark Cray’s remark. 

I beg you to answer me, ^lark. 
What you say shall go no further.” 

'‘Well, yes, it was so,” said Mark, 
" though I’m sure I can’t think w’hy 
you want to bring up the thing now. 
I did give her the chloroform, but I 
gave it for the best. As I was to 
perform the operation I thought I 
had a right to exercise my own judg- 
ment, which was opposed to the doc- 
tor’s. I was very sorry for the re- 
sult, but I did it for the best.” 

"I wish you had told me the truth 
at the time, Mark. You suffered me 
to believe that the chloroform was 
given by Dr. Davenal.” 

"And what difference did it make 
to you which of us gave it ?” was 
Mark Cray’s reply, not an unnatural 
one. "You may guess that it was a 
thing I did not care to speak of. So 
long as it was assumed we gave the 
chloroform conjointly, in. accordance 
with ordinary practice and our best 
judgment, nobody could say a word ; 
but if it had been disclosed that I 
gave it by myself, on my own re- 
sponsibility, I should have had the 
whole town carping at me.” 

Oswald had nothing further to say. 
He could not tell the bitter truth — 
that this miserable %iisapprehension 
had wrecked his hopes of happiness, 
had been making an iceblock of his 
heart in the intervening years. 

Not only in the dining-parlor of 


362 


OSWALD CRAY. 


Miss Davenal’s house was there a 
conference being held at that hour, 
but also in the drawing-room above : 
and but for the all-absorbing nature 
of his own thoughts, Oswald Cray 
had not failed to hear the sounds. 
Captain Davenal had got Neal there, 
before his aunt. And Mr. Neal was 
slipping out of all accusations as 
smoothly as an eel. 

The group was noticeable. Miss 
Davenal in her chair, upright and 
angry, only partially understanding 
the cause of the commotion ; Captain 
Davenal standing, open and impetu- 
ous, talking very fast; Neal full of 
repose and self-possession, all his wits 
in full play ; and Sara sitting apart in 
silence, her cheek bent upon her hand. 
Captain Davenal charged Neal with 
treachery, general and particular. Neal 
had his plausible answer ready to 
meet it all. 

The interview was drawing to an 
end, and little satisfaction had been 
derived from it. Poor Miss DavenaPs 
ears were in a mazed condition ; desks, 
letters, inventions to Sara touching a 
Mrs. Wentworth, and a hundred other 
charges, jumbling hopelessly upon 
them, nothing being clear. Neal 
denied every thing. 

‘'You did tell Miss Sara that the 
young woman was my wife,” cried 
Captain Davenal, indignantly. 

“ I beg your pardon, sir,” said Neal, 
respectfully. “ I said I felt quite sure 
she was not ; that there must be some 
mistake. Miss Sara perhaps will 
remember that such was my opihion.” 

“ At any rate, you said the young 
woman made the charge,” persisted 
Captain DaVenal, irritated at the 
assured coolness. 

“ I did, sir. I understood the young 
woman to make it. She ” 

“ But she never did make it,” inter- 
rupted Captain Davenal. 

Neal shrugged his shoulders in sub- 
missive supercili^sqess, meant for 
Mrs. Wentworth.^|t‘ It ipay suit the 
young woman’s purpose' to say so 
now, sir. I fear she is not very strict 
in her adherence to truth ; but she 
certainly did make it at the time. 


However, sir, I am quite willing to 
take the blame upon myself, to allow 
that I misunderstood her.” 

“Why, you have not the face to 
tell me that you have gone on believ- 
ing it ?” 

“ Oh dear no, sir. I was very soon 
afterwards convinced that the thing 
was a mistake altogether.” 

“And pray why had you not the 
honesty to say so to Miss Sara Dav- 
enal ?” 

“ I’m sure I should have been happy 
to say so, sir, had I possessed the 
least idea that it would have been 
welcome. But, after the first blush, 
the matter appeared to be so very 
absurd, that I never supposed Miss 
Sara would give to it a second thought. 
If my silence has caused any uneasi- 
ness, I can only say how very sorry 
I am for it.” 

“ Who is the young woman ?” help- 
lessly cried Miss Bettina. “And pray, 
Neal, how came it, if you had any 
thing of the sort to say, that you did 
not say it to me ? I am the proper 
person to hear these things ; a young 
lady is not.” 

Neal advanced a step to his mistress 
and spoke in his low clear tone. “ It 
was not my intention to speak to 
Miss Sara at all, ma’am, or to you 
either ; I should not have thought of 
doing such a thing. But I could not 
help myself when Miss Sara ques- 
tioned me upon the point.” 

All that was reasonable and feasible, 
and Miss Davenal nodded her head in 
approbation, but her nephew, the 
captain, got in a passion, and insisted 
that Neal should be discharged there 
and then. 

Neal was quite ready to go, he said, 
civilly courteous, if his mistress saw 
fit to inflict upon him so severe a 
step. He was unconscious of having 
done any thing to merit it. Perhaps 
she would be pleased to particularize 
his offence. 

“ He is a villain, aunt,” broke forth 
the captain intemperately, before Misa 
Bettina could speak. “ I believe he 
has been one ever since my father 
took him into the house. He has 


OSWALD CRAY. 


363 


opened letters, and unlocked desks, 
and altogether played the part of 
deceit. He shall go.” 

Neal interrupted, humbly begging 
the captain^s pardon. He could most 
truthfully assure his mistress that he 
had done nothing of the sort ; he had 
never opened a letter in the house, 
except his own ; had never touched a 
desk but to dust it. If Captain Dav- 
enal could mention any one distinct 
charge, he should be glad, as it would 
allow him the opportunity of refuta- 
tion. No. His conscience acquitted 
him. He should quit the house — if 
he did have to quit it — with a clear 
character, and he thought his mistress 
would acknowledge that he did so. 
In the one little point concerning 
Mrs. Wentworth, he might have been 
in error ; first, in too readily giving 
ear to what she said; next, in not 
having again spoken to Miss Sara to 
set the doubt at rest in her mind. 
They were mistakes, certainly, and 
he deeply regretted them. 

Neal,” said the captain, too hot- 
headed to maintain his dignity, “I’d a 
hundred times over rather be an open 
villain than a sneak. Why, you 
know you have been nothing but a 
spy from the very moment you en- 
tered the house. Aunt Bettina, listen I 
Before the regiment went away, I got 
into a little trouble, upon which I 
found it necessary to consult my 
father, and I went ” 

“A little what ?” asked Miss Bet- 
tina. 

“ Trouble. A little difficulty.” 

“ Oh, ah, yes,” said Miss Bettina. 
“You were always getting into it.” 

“Not such as that,” thought the 
captain. “ Well, I had to go down to 
Hallingham,” he continued aloud, as 
he bent to her. “ I did not care that 
any of you should know it, and I got 
down one night unexpected by my 
father. I was with him in his study 
for some time, and went back so as to 
be at duty the next morning. Would 
you believe,” — pointing his finger at 
Neal — “that yon honest fellow was a 
spy upon the interview ?” 


Mr. Neal was a little taken by sur- 
prise, and Sara looked up astonished. 
But the man was not one to lose his 
impassibility. 

“ He was at the window, looking 
and listening : not I believe that he 
could see and hear very much. And 
he afterwards went abroad and told 
of the interview : told that his master 
had a secret visitor at night. You 
little thought, Mr. Neal, that the vis- 
itor was myself, or that I should ever 
bring it home to you.” 

Neal, all unconscious innocence, 
gazed straight forward into Captain 
DavenaPs face. “ I have not the 
least idea what it is that you are 
speaking of, sir. My recollection does 
not serve me upon the point.” 

“ Oh yes, it does,” said Captain 
Davenal. “ A subtle nature such as 
yours cannot forget so easily. Hap- 
pily he to whom you carried the tale 
of the evening was a trustworthy 
man ; he kept his own counsel, and 
told you Dr. DavenaPs visitors were 
no business of his or of yours. I 
speak of Mr. Oswald Cray.” 

“ Mr. Oswald Cray ?” repeated 
Neal, plunging into reflection. “ On 
my honor, sir, I have not the least 
idea what it is you can mean. A vis- 
itor at night to my late master in his 
study ? Stay, I do remember some- 
thing of it. I — yes— I was outside, 
taking a mouthful of fresh air prepar- 
atory to retiring to rest, and I saw 
some one — a stranger I took him to 
be — come stealthily in at the gate, 
and he was afterwards shut in with 
my master. I’m suje, sir, I beg your 
pardon even at this distance of time, 
if I was mistaken. I feared he might 
be a suspicious character, and I think 
I did go to the window, anxious for 
my master’s personal safety. I could 
not have supposed it was you, sir.” 

Was it possible to take Neal at a 
disadvantage ? It did not seem so. 

“ And it was a^^xiety for your mas- 
caused you 
to Mr. Os- 
wald Cray ? Eh ?” 

“Does Mr. Oswald Cray say I 


ter’s pers^al safetj^ that 
afterwards to'^ffecount this 


364 


OSWALD CRAY. 


# 


recounted it to him, sir inquired 
Neal, probably not feeling sure of his 
ground just here. 

“ That’s my business,” said Captain 
Davenal, while Sara looked round at 
Neal. You did recount it to him.” 

All I can say, sir, is, that if I did, 
I must have had some good motive in 
it. I cannot charge my memory at 
this distance of time. Were I in any 
anxiety touching my master, Mr. Os- 
wald Cray was probably the gentle- 
man I should carry it to, seeing he 
was a friend of the family. I have — 
I think — some faint remembrance that 
I did speak to Mr. Oswald Cray of 
that mysterious visitor,” slowly added 
Neal, looking up in the air, as if he 
were trying to descry the sun through 
a fog. It’s very likely that I did, 
sir, not being at ease myself upon the 
point.” 

Captain Davenal was losing pa- 
tience. It seemed impossible to bring 
any thing home to Neal with any sort 
of satisfaction. At the close of the 
Captain’s interview with Oswald Cray, 
the latter had mentioned — but not in 
any ill-feeling to Neal — that that 
functionary had spoken to him of the 
night interview at Dr. Davenal’s ; 
had said he was outside the window at 
the time. Oswald had not said 
more ; he deemed it well not to do 
so ; but Captain Davenal had become 
at once convinced that it was but one 
of Neal’s prying tricks. He turned to 
Miss Davenal. 

“ Aunt Bettina, this is waste of time. 
In nearly the last interview I ever had 
with my father, h^ told me he had 
doubts of Neal. He feared the man 
was carrying on a game of deceit. I 
know he has been doing it all along. 
Will you discharge him ?” 

I can’t understand it at all,” re- 
turned Miss Bettina. 

I’ll enlighten you one of these 
days, when you are nqfc^ery deaf, and 
we can have a quiet h^lf hour together. 
Safa, what do you 

Sara rose from her seat, her cheek 
flushing, her voice firm. Neal must 
leave. Aunt B.ettina,” she said, bend- 


ing down to the deaf ear. “ Edward 
is quite right.” 

Miss Bettina looked at them all in 
succession. Had she believed the 
accusations, she would have discharged 
Neal on the spot, but she doubted 
them. She had thought there was 
not so faithful a servant in the world. 
And he looked so immaculate as he 
stood there ! 

“ I don’t go out of the house this 
night until he has left it. Aunt Bet- 
tina,” resumed the captain. 

“ This night I” echoed Miss Bettina, 
catching the words. “I can’t let 
Neal go without warning, leaving us 
without a servant. Who is to wait 
upon us ?” 

^‘You shall have mine, aunt; one 
I have brought home with me ” 

“No,” said Miss Bettina, resolute 
in the cause of justice. “ Neal, I will 
not part with you in that hasty manner. 
I cannot judge yet between you and 
Captain Davenal. That you must 
leave is obvious, but you shall have 
the proper month’s warning.” 

Neal stepped up, all suavity. “ I 
beg your pardon, ma’am, you are 
very kind, but I could not think of re- 
maining a day to cause unpleasant- 
ness in the family. I had better go 
at once. I have my feelings, ma’am, 
although I am but a dependant. My 
conscience tells me that I have served 
you faithfully.” 

“ I think you have, Neal.” 

“ I have indeed, ma’am, and I hope 
it will be remembered in my char- 
acter.” 

“ Don’t send to me for one,” im- 
petuously broke out Captain Davenal. 
“ And now, Neal, the sooner you are 
out of the house the better. I shall 
keep my word : to see you away from 
it ere I quit it myself.” 

Neal bowed : he could but be ever 
the respectful servant : and retired. 
Miss Davenal was bewildered. What 
with parting with Neal, what with 
being left with nobody to replace him, 
she could not gather her senses. 
Captain Davenal sat down. First of 
all promising her that the servant he 


OSWALD CRAY. 


spoke of should be in the house before 
night, to remain with her until she 
was suited with one, he next began 
to enlarge upon NeaPs delinquencies, 
and try to make her comprehend 
them. 

Sara silently left the room. It was 
altogether a painful subject, and she 
did not care to hear more of it now. 
She went down into the dining-par- 
lor, her movements slow and quiet ; 
since Mrs. Cray^s increased danger, 
noise had been avoided in the house 
as much as possible. Some one was 
standing up by the mantel-piece, his 
back towards her ; in the dusk of the 
room — for evening was drawing on — 
Sara took it to be Mark : and yet she 
thought she had heard Markus step in 
his wife’s chamber now, in earning 
down the stairs. This gentleman 
was taller, too ! He turned suddenly 
round, and the fire threw its light on 
the face of Oswald Cray. 

She stood a moment in surprise, 
and then went up to him, holding out 
her hand as to any ordinary visitor, 
and saying a word of apology that he 
should have been left there unan- 
nounced. A strange expression ; an 
expression of deprecation, almost of 
humility, sat on his features, and 
he did not touch the offered hand. 

waited to see you,” he said. 
“ I came here to see Mark, who has 
been with me.” 

He stopped suddenly. His man- 
ner, his looks were altogether strange. 
Sara thought something must have 
happened. 

What is the matter ?” she asked. 

You look as if you had^some great 
care upon you.” 

“And so I have. That care that 
arises from shame and repentance ; 
from finding that we have been upon 
the mistaken road of wrong; been 
treading it for years.” 

She sat down, quietly, timidly, 
looking to him for an elucidation, 
half frightened at his emotion. 

“ I wish to have an explanation 
with you, Sara. I want — if it be 
possible — forgiveness. And I don’t 


365 

know how to enter upon the one, or 
to sue for the other.” 

She had rarely seen him otherwise 
than calmly self-possessed. Generally, 
especially of late years, he was cold 
almost to a fault. And now he was 
as one blazing with an inward fire : 
his lips were scarlet, his brow was 
flushed, his voice quite hoarse with 
emotion. 

“ In the years gone by, I — I — 
threw you up, Sara. While I loved 
you better than any thing on earth, 
knowing that you were the only one 
upon it who could ever awaken the 
passion within me, did I live to cen- 
turies, I voluntarily resigned you. 
That night in the abbey grave-yard at 
Hallingham, when we accidentally met 
— you have not forgotten it — I told 
you that I could not marry you ; that 
you were not fit be my wife. Hush ! 
it was equivalent to it. Sara, how 
can I stand now before you and con- 
fess that I was altogether under an 
error ; that in my pride, my blind- 
ness, I had taken up a false view of 
things,- and was acting upon it ? Can 
you see my shame, my repentance, as 
I say it to you ?” 

“ I don’t understand you,” she 
gasped, utterly bewildered. 

“ Will you so far pardon me — will 
you so far trust me after all that has 
occurred — as to give me this one 
simple word of explanation ? To 
whom did you attribute the cause of 
my acting in the way I did ? Whose 
ill-conduct was it, as w^s supposed, 
that had raised the barrier between 
us ?” 

She hesitated, not perhaps caring 
to reply. 

“ I have had an interview to-day 
with Captain Davenal,” he resumed, 
in a low tone. “He has given me 
the details of the unhappy business 
he was drawn into — the forged bills : 
I am so far in his entire confidence. 
Will that help you to answer me ?” 

“ It was that,” she said. 

“ That alone ?” 

“ That alone. There was nothing 
else.” 


366 


OSWALD CRAY. 


''Well, Sara, can you believe me 
when I tell you that I never heard of 
that business until to-day ? — That 
Captain Davenal had nothing what- 
ever to do with my course of 
action 

Indeed she looked as though she 
could not believe him. What else, 
then ? she asked. Who had ? Under 
what impression had he acted ? 

"Ah, there lies my shame ? Sara, 
I dared — I dared to attribute ill-con- 
duct to another,’’ he cried, with emo- 
tion. " In my pride and folly, in my 
mind’s delusion, I presumed to set 
myself up for a judge over one who 
in goodness might have crushed me 
to nothing. I shall never get over 
the remorse during life.” 

" You — did not — attribute ill-con- 
duct of any sort to me ?” she said 
with white lips. 

"To you! To you whom I have 
ever believed to be one of the best 
and truest women upon earth ! — whom 
I have regarded through it all with an 
amount of respect unutterable I No, 
no. But the question serves me 
right.” 

She laid her hands one over the 
other as she sat, striving to keep her 
feelings under control. Praise from 
him was all too sweet yet. 

"Oh, do me justice so far, Sara 1 
While I gave you up, I knew that to 
my heart and judgment none were 
like unto you for goodness : I knew 
that if my obstinate pride, my spirit 
of self-sufficiency did but allow me to 
marry you, you would be the greatest 
treasure man ever took to himself. 
Can you tolerate me while I dare 
openly to say these things ? — can you 
believe that I am pouring them forth 
in my humiliation ? I have loved you 
deeply and fervently ; I shall love you 
always ; but even that love has scarcely 
equalled my admiration and my re- 
spect.” 

" But who else, then, could have had 
any counteracting, influence ?” she re- 
turned, after a while. 

I " I dare not tell you.” 

" There was only Edward. I had 
no other brother. No one else could 


have done any thing to bring shame 
upon — oh, surely, you cannot mean 
papa I” she broke off, the improbable 
idea flashing over her. 

" Don’t ask me, Sara I In mercy 
to myself.” 

" Papa who was so good ?” she re- 
iterated, paying no heed to his words 
in her wonder. " He was so just, so 
kind, so honorable ! I think if ever 
there was a good man on earth, who 
tried to do as God would have him, 
it was papa. It is impossible you 
could suspect any thing wrong in 
him !” 

" My object in waiting to see you 
this evening was, first, to make my 
confession ; secondly, to ask you to 
be more just, more merciful than I 
have been, and to forgive me,” he 
rejoined, in a low tone. " I must 
add another petition yet, Sara : that 
you would generously allow this one 
point to remain as it is between 
us.” 

" But I think you ought to tell me,” 
she urged. " Did you indeed suspect 
papa ?” 

"Yes.” 

" But of what ?” 

" Ah, don’t press me further, Sara, 
fdr I cannot tell you. A singular ac- 
cident led me to doubt Dr. Davenal’s 
conduct — honor — I hardly know what 
to call it — and there followed on this 
a chain of circumstances so apparently 
corroborative of the doubt, that I 
thought I had no resource but to be- 
lieve. I believed, and I acted upon 
the belief; I judged him harshly; I 
treated him coldly ; I gave up you, 
my deare^it hope and object in life ; 
and this day only have my eyes been 
opened, and to my shame I learn that 
the whole thing, a^ regarded him, was 
a delusion. Will you — will you gen- 
erously let my confession rest here ?” 

"Papa would not have done as Ed- 
ward did,” she whispered. 

" No, no, it was not any thing of that 
nature. Money and money- matters 
had nothing to do with it. It was an 
entirely different thing. I am so 
ashamed of myself that I cannot hear 
to speak of this further. Surely I 


OSWALD CRAY. 


367 


have said enough ? It was a mistake, 
a misapprehension altogether ; and 
the greatest act of kindness you can 
do me now is to. let it rest here.^^ 

She sat gazing at him with ques- 
tioning eyes, nearly lost in wonder. 

Yes, the impression under which 
I acted was a false one. . There ex- 
isted no cause whatever for my es- 
tranging myself from you. But for 
my own unpardonable credulity, I 
need never have given you up ; and 
the past years of anguish — and I know 
they have been full of anguish to both 
of us — ought not to have had place. 
I was misled by an unfortunate chain 
of events, and nothing remains to me 
but shame and repentance.’^ 

There ensued a silence. Sara was 
standing on the hearth-rug now, and 
he took his elbow from the mantel- 
piece, where it had been resting, and 
moved a step towards her. 

Can I ever hope for your forgive- 
ness 

‘‘ It seems to me that I have nothing 
to forgive,” she answered, in a low 
voice. If circumstances misled you, 
you could not be blamed for acting 
upon them, according to your belief.” 

Sara !” — he laid his hand upon 
her shoulder, and his voice shook with 
the intensity of its emotion — ‘^may I 
dare to hope that you will let me in 
my future life strive to atone for 
this ?” 

“ How atone for it ?” she faltered 

“Will you generously look over the 
past folly ? — will you suffer it to be 
between us as it used to be ? — will you 
be my wife at last ?” 

She trembled as she stood, the con- 
scious light of love mantling in her 
cheek and in her drooping eye. Mr. 
Oswald Cray held her before him, 
waiting and watching for the answer, 
his lips parted with suspense. 

“ My brother’s crime remains still,” 
she whispered. “ A memento of the 
past.” 

“ Your brother’s crime I Should 
you be punished for that ? — for him ? 
And what of my brother ?” he con- 
tinued, the revelation of the day im- 
parting to his tone a whole world of 


remorse, of self-condemning repent- 
ance. “ What disgrace has not my 
brother brought to me ? Oh Sara ! 
should the ill wrought by these ties 
part us ? It never ought to have 
done so. Let us stand alone, hence- 
forth, you and I, independent of the 
world I Don’t try me too greatly ! 
don’t punish me, as in iustice you 
might I” 

For a moment her eyes looked 
straight into his with a loving, ear- 
nest glance, and then dropped again. 
“ I will be your wife, Oswald,” she 
simply said. “ I have never tried to 
forget you, for I found I could not.” 

And as if relief from the tension of 
suspense were too great for entire 
silence, a faint sound of emotion broke 
from Oswald Cray. And he bent to 
take from her lips that kiss, left upon 
them so long ago in the garden-parlor 
of the old house at Hallingham. 

— 

CHAPTER LYI. 

“ FINANCE,” THIS TIME. 

An afternoon in March. The sun 
was drawing towards its setting 
amidst gorgeous clouds, and the red 
light illumining the western sky threw 
its rays into an invalid’s chamber and 
lighted it up with a warm hue. 

Something else was drawing to- 
wards its setting, And that was the 
feeble life of the chamber’s chief occu- 
pant. It was a good-sized pleasant 
room : the bed at the end farthest 
from the wiodow ; the middle space 
devoted to the comfort of the invalid, 
a table with some books upon its 
handsome cover, a sofa, easy chairs, 
velvet footstools, and a few pretty 
ornaments to amuse the eye. 

On the sofa, by the side of the fire, 
a coverlid of the lightest and softest 
texture thrown gently over her, lay 
the invalid. Her hands, resting list- 
lessly on either side her, were white 
and attenuated, her face was drawn 
and wan. But there was a strange 


368 


OSWALD CRAY. 


beauty in the face yet ; in the eyes 
with their violet depths, in the exqui- 
site features, shaded by the mass of 
silky hair. You have not failed to 
recognize her. It was Mrs. Cray. 
Just now the eyes were closed and 
she was dozing peacefully. 

At the opposite end of the hearth- 
rug, sitting listlessly in an easy-chair, 
was Mark. Of late Mark had been 
rather prone to be as still and idle as 
his wife : the inert life wearied him, 
it chafed his spirit ; but there was no 
escape from it at present, and Mark 
Cray had perforce resigned himself to 
it, as an imprisoned bird resigns itself 
in time to its cage. Mark’s future 
prospects were uncommonly vague : 
in fact they were as yet bounded by 
the old expectation-anchor, the “some- 
thing” that was to “ turn up.” Any 
time in the past few weeks his wife’s 
death might have been expected, and 
Mark had yielded to the idleness of 
the circumstances, and been tranquil. 
Mr. Barker was away in Paris, and 
did not write ; the Wheal Bang affairs 
were going on to a comfortable con- 
clusion, and Mark was letting the 
future take care of itself. Strolling 
out for short walks ; giving a quarter 
of an hour to the “ Times wander- 
ing for a few minutes into the sitting- 
rooms, and lounging back in the easy- 
chairs by the side of his wife — thus 
had Mark’s recent days been passed. 

But on this afternoon all was 
changed, and Mark’s forced quies- 
cence had given place to a fidgety 
restlessness, very characteristic of the 
old times. The post had just brought 
a letter from Mr. Barker — some acci- 
dent or contrary weather having de- 
layed the arrival of the French mail 
— and Mark Cray, upon reading it, 
felt exalted into the seventh heaven. 

Barker had succeeded I lie had 
brought out a company in Paris, con- 
nected with finance ; the great work 
he had been striving for so long. In 
three weeks’ time from that date it 
would all be in full operation, and 
if Mrs. Cray were sufficiently well 
to be left, and Mark would come over 


to Paris, he could instantly step into 
a post in the Company at a salary 
of eight hundred a year to begin 
with. In about six months’ time, 
according to moderate computation, 
Barker wrote, the thing would be in 
full swing, and the profits inaugurated 
certainly at not less than six thousand 
per annum. The half of which splen- 
did income should be Mark’s. 

Can you wonder at his restless- 
ness ? At his brightened eye, his 
flushed face, as he sits there in the 
chair, bolt upright, his hand raised 
incessantly to push back his hair ^ 
He glances across at Caroline — whom 
he really loves very much still — and 
thinks what a pity it is that all this 
good fortune should have delayed it- 
self until now. Had it come too late 
for her ? Mark Cray in his sanguine 
fashion actually asked himself the 
question, medical man though he is. 
For the last two or three days Caro- 
line had been so much better I only 
on this very morning she had told 
Mark she felt as if she were getting 
well again. 

Mark moved his restless legs and 
contrived to knock down the fire- 
shovel. The noise awoke Caroline. 
She stirred, and turned her opening 
eyes on her husband. 

“ What was that ? Did anybody 
come in, Mark ?” 

“ I threw over one of the fire-irons. 
I am sorry it disturbed you. They 
are always sticking out, tiresome 
things I It’s not a proper fender for 
a bed-room. Caroline, I have had a 
letter from Barker,” he continued, 
rising in excitement and standing be- 
fore her on the hearth-rug. “ It’s the 
most glorious news ! The thing real- 
ized at last.” 

“ What thing ?” asked Caroline, 
feebly, after a pause of bewilderment 

“ The thing he had on hand so long, 
the great scheme he has been working 
for. Oh, Carine, I wish you could 
get better ! There’s eight hundred a- 
year waiting for me in Paris ; and 
there’ll be an income of at least three 
thousand before six months are over. 


OSWALD CRAY. 


369 


Three thousand for my share, you 
know. I’m sure you would like liv- 
ing in Paris.” 

She did not answer. Nothing was 
heard save the quick gasps of the 
panting breath, the result of excessive 
weakness. Mark was struck with 
something in her aspect, and bent 
down to her. 

Don’t you feel so well, Carine ?” 

I — feel — weary,” was all she an- 
swered, her voice ominously low. 

“ Where’s Sara, I wonder ?” said 
Mark. I’ll go and send her to you. 
You want some beef-tea, or some- 
thing, I dare say.” 

Mark w’^ent down the stairs, meet- 
ing Sara on them. In the drawing- 
room with Miss Bettina was Oswald 
Craj^ who had just come in. He was 
a frequent visitor now. 

The half brothers shook hands, 
coldly enough. They were civil to 
each other always, but there could 
never be cordiality between them. 
Not because of the past; but because 
they were so essentially diiferent in 
mind, in judgment, and in conduct. 

My luck has turned at last, Os- 
wald,” exclaimed Mark impulsively. 

“ In what way ?” asked Oswald, 
leaning over the back of a chair while 
he talked to Miss Bettina, 

‘‘I have just got a letter from 
Barker,” answered Mark, running his 
hand through his hair restlessly. “ I 
told you what a great scheme he had 
got on hand in Paris, but you turned 
the cold shoulder on it. Well, it’s 
l:>earing fruit at last.” 

Oh,” said Oswald, evincing a 
desire, if his tone and manner might 
be judged by, to turn the cold shoul- 
der on it still, metaphorically speak- 
ing. ^^How is your wife this after- 
noon ?” he continued, passing to a 
different subject. 

‘‘ She has been so much better the 
last day or two that one might almost 
be tempted to hope she’d get well 
again,” rejoined Mark, volubly. ^‘She 
seems tired now ; low, I thought : 
Sara’s just gone up to her. What a 
shame it is, that things turn out so 
cross-grained and contrary !” 

23 


The concluding sentence, delivered 
with marked acumen, reached the ear 
of Miss Bettina. She looked up from 
her knitting to scan Mark. 

If Barker’s luck had only been 
realized six months ago, what a thing 
it would have been I” he went on. 

“ Caroline might have got well, in- 
stead of worse. In the enjoyment of 
luxuries in a home of her own, re- 
newed wealth and position in pros- 
pective, with the pure air of the balmy 
French capital, there’s no knowing 
what benefit she might not have de- 
rived. And now it comes too late ! 
I shall ever regret it for her sake.” 

Regret what ?” sharply inter- 
posed Miss Bettina. 

Mark replied by giving a summary 
of Barker’s luck. Miss Bettina paused, 
knitting-needles in hand, her keen 
gray eyes fixed on Mark, and trying 
to understand him. 

“ Barker in luck !” she repeated, 
catching some of the words and tho 
general sense. ** Has he come into 
an estate in the moon ? Don’t be 
simpleton, Mark Cray.” 

Mark Cray felt exasperated. Noth- 
ing angered him so much as for people 
to pretend to see these enchanting 
prospects with different eyes from his 
own. He had always been convinced 
it was done only to vex him. Poor 
Mark 1 He turned to Oswald, and 
began expatiating upon the good for- 
tune that was drawing so near ; and 
Oswald saw that it was of no use to 
try to stop him. The fever-mania 
had again taken hold of Mark. 

What is the scheme, do you say ?” 
asked Oswald, just as he would have 
asked any thing of a child ; and per- 
haps it was not altogether his fault 
that a sound of mockery was dis- 
cernible in his tone. 

“It’s connected with finance.”, 

“ Oh,” said Oswald. “ Finance.” 

“ It’s the grandest thing that Jias 
been brought before the public for 
many a year,” continued Mark, his 
voice impressive, his light eyes spark- 
ling. “The very greatest ” 

“ Grander than the Great Wheal 
Bang ?” inopportunely interposed 


370 


OSWALD CRAY. 


Miss Bettina, Markus earnest tones 
having enabled her to hear better 
than usual. 

A hundred times grander/^ re- 
turned Mark, his mind too completely- 
absorbed in the contemplation of the 
grandeur to detect the irony. That 
is, better, you know. Miss Bettina. 
The mine was very good ; but of 
course there was a risk attending that, 
from water or else, and the result un- 
fortunately realized it. This is differ- 
ent. Once the company is formed, 
and the shares are taken, it can’t fail. 
Barker and I went through the thing 
together over and over again, when 
he was in London : we had it all 
down before us in black and white : 
we allowed for every possible risk and 
♦contingency, and we proved that the 
thing could not fail, if once organ- 
ized. ” 

Oswald listened quietly. Miss Bet- 
tina had lost the thread again. 

The job was to organize the 
thing,” resumed Mark. ''It could 
not be done without money, and 
Barker — to speak the truth — found a 
difficulty in getting it. The money 
market was tight here, and men don’t 
care to speculate when money’s not 
plentiful. He also required the co- 
operation of some French capitalist, 
who would put his name to it, some 
good man on the Bourse, and that was 
hard to get. Those Frenchmen are 
all so narrow-minded, fight so shy. 
He knows two or three good English- 
men in Paris who were willing to go 
into it, and helped Barker immensely 
with advice and introductions, and 
that ; but they had no funds at com- 
mand. However, it’s all accomplished 
now. Barker has fought his way 
through impediments, and surmounted 
them. The company’s formed, the 
preliminary arrangements are success- 
fully carried out, and fortune is at 
hand.” 

" What is at hand ?” asked Miss 
Bettina. 

" Fortune,” replied Mark. " I shall 
take one of those nice little boxes in 
the Champs Elysees. Some of them 


are charming. Or pernaps only part 
of one if — if Carine — 0, dear I it is 
hard for her that this luck did not 
fall-in a year ago I I wonder,” broke 
off Mark, passing to another phase of 
his future visions, " I wonder whether, 
if it were possible to get Caroline over 
to Paris now, the change might benefit 
her ?” 

" You think of residing in Paris ?” 
said Oswald. 

" Of course I do. Paris will be 
the centre of operations. Barker wants 
me over there now ; almost directly ; 
and the minute I join him I begin to 
draw at the rate of eight hundred 
a-year. Just to go on with, you 
know, until the money falls in.” 

" Mark,” said Oswald, after a pause, 
" will it be of any use my saying a 
word of warning to you ?” 

" On what subject ?” returned Mark, 
looking up with surprise. 

" On this subject. It seems to mo 
that you are falling into another delu- 
sion : that the ” 

"No, it will not be of any use,” 
burst forth Mark, in strange excite- 
ment. " I might have known before- 
hand that you’d turn out my enemy 
upon the point. If gold and diamonds 
were dropping down in a shower from 
the skies, you’d not stretch forth your 
hand to catch them. There’s a mist 
before your eyes, Oswald, that pre- 
vents you seeing these things in their 
proper aspect.” 

He began to pace the room as he 
spoke, chafing considerably. Why was 
it that these little hints of warning 
awoke the irritation of Mark’s spirit ? 
Could there be an under-current of 
doubt in his mind whether Oswald 
was right and he wrong ? However 
it might be, one thing was certain — 
that no warning, let it come from 
whom it would, could do any good 
with Mark. 

As he turned to face them again, 
Sara entered. An expression of alarm 
was on her face, and she closed the 
door before speaking. She had come 
to say that Caroline appeared worse ; 
altogether different from usual. 


OSWALD CRAY. 


371 


Mark ran up the stairs ; Miss Bet- 
tina put down her knitting to follow. 
Sara turned to Oswald Cray.' 

'' She knows you are here, Oswald, 
and would like to see you. She wants 
to bid you good-by. I think her say- 
ing that alarmed me more than any 
thing.” 

Caroline was on the sofa as before. 
Yery quiet, save for her pan ting breath. 
Her white hands lay listless, her face, 
dreadfully worn though it was, was 
calm, tranquil. She looked at them 
one by one, and slightly raised her 
hand as Oswald entered. He bent 
down to her; taking it in his. 

Thank you for all,” she whispered. 

The change in her countenance 
struck them. It so far frightened 
Mark as to take from him his self- 
possession. He pushed Oswald away. 

Oh, Carine, what is it ? You 
cannot be going to die I You must 
not die, now that all this good luck is 
coming upon me 1” 

She glanced up at him, her eyes 
wide open, as if she scarcely under- 
stood. 

There^s the most beautiful home 
getting ready for you in Paris, Car- 
ine,” he resumed, his voice sounding 
as if he were on the verge of tears. 

We’ll live in the Champs Elysees ; 
it is the loveliest spot, and you can’t 
fail to grow better there, if we can 
only get your disease to turn. Carine I 
Carine ! don’t leave me just when I 
am able to surround you with wealth 
and luxury again I This will be a 
greater and a surer thing than the 
Great Wheal Bang.” 

'‘Don’t, Mark! I am going to a 
better home.” 

“ But I can’t let you go until I have 
atoned for the past I I ” 

" Hush, hush I” she interrupted. 
" Oh, Mark 1 if you only knew how 
welcome it is to me ! I am going to 
be at peace after all the turmoil. I 
am going to rest.” 

" Do you want to go ?” pursued 
Mark, half resentfully. " Don’t you 
care to get well ?” 

" I have not cared to get well since 
I came to England. That is, I have 


not thought I should,” she returned, 
between the gasps of her labored 
breath. " When I heard the bell toll 
out for Prince Albert, I asked who 
was I that I should be spared when 
he was taken ? The next world has 
seemed very near to me since then. 
As if the doors of it had been brought 
down to earth and stood always open.” 

That the death of the prince, 
brought so palpably as may be said 
before her, had taken a great hold on 
the mind of Mrs. Cray, there was no 
doubt. Several times during her later 
weeks of illness, she had alluded to 
it. Her principal feeling in relation 
to it appeared to be that of gratitude. 
For the good and great prince to be 
taken suddenly from the earthly 
duties so much needing him, was only 
an earnest, had one been wanting, 
that he had entered upon a better and 
higher sphere. It seemed that he 
hadvbut been removed a step ; a step 
on the road towards heaven : and it 
most certainly in a measure had the 
effect of reconciling Mrs. Cray to her 
own removal, of tranquillizing her 
weary heart, of bringing her thoughts 
and feelings into that state most fit- 
ting to prepare for it. Often and 
often had she awoke from a deep 
sleep, starting suddenly up and calling 
out, “ I thought I heard St. Paul’s 
bell again.” 

“ I wish the Great Wheal Bang had 
been in the seal” gloomily exclaimed 
Mark Cray, who was no more calcu- 
lated for a scene such as this than a 
child, and had little more control over 
his tongue. “ But for that mine turn- 
ing out as it did, your illness might 
never have come on.” 

" Don’t regret it, Mark,” she. feebly 
said. " God’s hand was in all. I 
look back and trace it. But for the 
trouble brought to me then, I might 
never have been reconciled to go. It 
is so merciful ! God has weaned me 
from the world before removing me 
from it.” 

Mark Cray drew a little back and 
stood gazing at his wife, a gloomy, 
helpless sort of expression on his 
countenance, and his right hand 


372 


OSWALD CRAY. 


nerv'ously pushing back his hair. 
Oswald was at the head of the sofa, 
Sara near to him, and Miss Bettina 
was at the other side of the room, 
looking afc^er some comforting medi- 
cine drops. Thus there was a clear 
space before the sofa, and the red 
light from the fire played on Caroline’s 
wasted features. 

The change in them frightened Sara 
as much as it did Mark, turning her 
face to whiteness. Oswald happened 
to look at her. 

'‘Are you terrified he whispered. 

But Sara Davenal was not demon- 
strative. She could not help her 
changing countenance, but her manner 
was perfectly still. That Caroline 
was dying, dying suddenly, as may 
be said, she had little doubt. 

" Can it be death she asked of 
Oswald. 

He bowed his head. "I fear so,” 
came the low-breathed answer. “ Ere 
many hours shall have passed.” 

"If things had not turned out so 
crossly !” began Mark again. " I 
knew I should redeem the misfortunes 
af that M^heal Bang. I always told 
vou I should extricate myself, Caro- 
line.” 

" We shall all be extricated from 
our misfortunes here,” came from her 
dying lips. "A few years more or 
less of toil, and strife, and daily care, 
and then redemption comes. Not the 
redemption that we work. Oh, Mark, 
if you could see things as I now see 
them ! When we are on the threshold 
of the next world, our eyes are opened 
to the poor value of this. Its worst 
cares have been but petty trials, its 
greatest heart-ache was not worth the 
pang. They were but hillocks that 
we had to pass in our journey up- 
wards, and God was always leading 
us. If we could but trust to Him ! 
If we did but learn to resign our 
hands implicitly to His, and be led as 
little children !” 

Mark Cray felt somewhat awed. 
He began to doubt whether it were 
exactly the time and place to pour 
forth regrets after the misfortunes of 
Irhe Great Wheal Bang, or enlarge on 


the future glories opening to him in 
the French capital. 

"It is so much better for me to be 
at rest ! God is taking me to the 
place where change and sickness can- 
not enter. Jesus is waiting for me, 
waiting to guide me into it in safety, 
lest I should miss the way. Aunt 
Bettina, when you were reading to 
me this morning, I fell asleep and I 
saw it all quite clearly. Those w’ho 
have gone before were looking out for 
me, and Jesus ’was ready to take me 
to them. Oh, Mark, if you could but 
see his loving look, as I saw it 1 He 
is waiting for us all as our turn 
comes I” 

Miss Bettina came forward with 
something in a glass. But the hushed 
appearance of the group arrested her, 
deaf though she was. 

" I shall see Uncle Richard ; I shall 
see poor Richard who went before 
him ; I shall see papa and mamma, 
whom I have nearly forgotten. We 
all go, some sooner, some later. This 
world lasts but a short minute, that 
one is the home, the gathering place. 
Mark, dear Mark, the troubles here 
are of so little moment ; they are only 
trifling hindrances through which we 
must bear on to Eternity. Oh, trust 
God ! They are all sent by Him I 

There occurred an interruption. 
Mr. Welch, who had not been able to 
call before that day, came in, and the 
solemn feeling that had been stealing 
over those in the chamber gave place 
to the ordinary routine of every-day 
events. 

"Before the morning,” the surgeon 
said when he left, in answer to a 
grave question put to him by Miss 
Bettina. 

« 

CHAPTER LYII. 

SIX MONTHS LATER. 

The first scenes of this story were 
laid in Hallingham, and it is only 
well that it should close there. Well, 
or not, it cannot be helped ; for the 


OSWALD CRAY. 


373 


chief personages you have met in its 
course were now gathered in that 
town. 

Caroline died in March, and this was 
the beginning of October, so you see 
several months have gone on in the 
year. The cold ungenial summer of' 
1862 had come to an end, and the Great 
Exhibition, characteristic of the year, 
was drawing to an end also. Ah ! 
how we plan and plot and work, and 
a higher Hand mars it I A higher 
wisdom than ours looks on, and over- 
rules and changes all things ! The 
one brave, earnest spirit, who had 
worked with all the energy of his true 
heart to bring about and perfect that 
exhibition, was alone not spared to 
see its fruition. Was there a single 
heart, of all the multitudes that flocked 
to it, that was not weighed down with 
a latent sense of the exhibition’s fail- 
ure in a general point of view, and of 
our own short-seeing helplessness ? 
The gilt had been taken off the ginger- 
bread. 

In the abbey at Hallingham, settled 
in it as she hoped for life, was Miss 
Bettina. With the death of Mrs. 
Cray, all necessity for Mis& DavenaFs 
remaining in London had ceased. In 
point of fact, it may be said to have 
ceased from the time Mark Cray and 
his wife went into Normandy ; but she 
had stayed on. Yery much disliking 
London, Miss Davenal made arrange- 
ments for leaving it as soon as she 
could do so with convenience, and in 
June had come back to Hallingham. 
Some difficulty arose about a residence : 
Miss Davenal was not one who could 
be put anywhere. She possessed 
some houses of her own in the town, 
good ones, but they were let. Oswald 
Cray it was who directed her attention 
to the abbey. It had never been 
occupied since Mark’s short tenancy 
of it : and at last, after some few 
alterations had been made in it, to the 
increase of it’s indoor comfort. Miss 
Davenal took^ it on a lease, and 
entered into possession. 

So far as human foresight may 
anticipate in this world of changes, 
she had settled down for life. The 


great barn of a drawing room had 
been made into two apartments ; 
handsome both, and of good propor- 
tions : the one was the drawing-room 
still, the other was Miss DavenaFs 
bed-chamber. A quiet, tranquil life 
she might expect to live here with 
her two hand-maidens, Watton and 
Dorcas. 

For Watton had settled down also 
after her rovings, and come back to 
Hallingham. Watton had not lightly 
or capriciously resigned her superior 
situation in London ; but ever since 
the past winter Watton had been 
ailing. She tried three or four doc- 
tors ; she took, as she said, quarts of 
physic; but Watton could not got 
strong. There was no particular dis- 
order, and she came at length to the 
conclusion that it must be London 
that disagreed with her, and gave ^ 
notice to quit her place. So she was 
installed once more upper maid to 
Miss Davenal, and seemed since the 
change to have got well all one 
way. 

She would have more to do than 
she had in the old days at the doctor’s, 
for there was no Neal now. Miss 
Davenal declined to try another man 
servant, probably from a conviction 
that she should never replace the 
services of that finished and invaluable 
domestic. Miss Davenal was b}^ no 
means convinced of the treachery 
attributed to him by Captain Davenal, 
and at odd moments was apt to look 
upon the charge as emanating solely 
from the gallant captain’s fanciful im- 
agination. 

Neal himself was flourishing. Con- 
sidering the precaution he took to 
keep himself right with the world, 
there was not much probability that 
he would ever be otherwise. Neal 
had entered on a situation with one 
of her Majesty’s ministers ; his lord- 
ship’s own personal attendant. It 
was to be hoped there’d be no oppor- 
tunity afforded him of getting at any 
of the state secrets ! Ah, how many 
of these rogues are there, besides 
Neal, filling confidential posts in the 
world ! Will it be so to the end of 


3T4 


OSWALD CRAY. 


their career? Will it be so with 
Neal ? I sometimes wonder. 

The abbey was gay just now, in 
this same month of October, for Miss 
Davenal was entertaining a party in 
it. Sara had left it a fortnight past 
with Oswald Cray, and Captain Dav- 
enal, wiio had come down to give her 
aw^ay, had remained since with his 
wife, on a visit to Miss Davenal. He 
called her Aunt Bett still : but she 
w^as more cordial with him than she 
used to be, for she had learned really 
to love the sweet- young wife. She 
W'as in the habit of assuring him that 
Rose was a greater treasure than he 
deserved ; and in that he did not 
contradict her. 

Two other visitors at the abbey 
w^ere Dick and Leo. Poor Leo could 
not recover his health ; Mrs. Keen 
grew^ timid about him, and it was 
decided that he should go back to his 
native place, Barbadoes, for a short 
wdiile, and see what that would do. 
His father and mother felt persuaded 
it would effect wonders, combined 
wdth their care ; and so Leo was on 
the point of sailing. Mr. Dick, toler- 
ated in the capacity of visitor as a 
necessary evil for his brother’s sake, 
had come home to Sara’s wedding, 
and was allowed to remain still, to 
see the last of Leo. Dick found 
the Michaelmas holidays delightful. 
What wdth making raids on the jam 
closets, and on sundry neighboring 
gardens w'here the pears and apples 
grew too abundantly, and in teasing 
Captain DavenaPs son-and-heir — a 
noisy young gentleman who promised 
to be another wdcked Dick — and going 
for stealthy rides on the tops of the 
raihvay engines (lying out all tempt- 
ing on the opposite side to the pears 
and apples) Mr. Dick found the time 
pass charmingly. Captain Davenal 
took him out shooting now and then, 
by w^ay of a treat. One day that the 
captain was otherwise engaged, the 
gun disappeared, and Dick also ; and 
Miss Bettina went all but into a real 
fit, expecting nothing less than to see 
him brought home with his head shot 


off. Dick, how^ever, reappeared with 
his head on, and a pheasant and a 
partridge in his hand, which he had 
shot and brought home in open tri- 
umph, defying the game laws. Miss 
Bettina wondered how long it would 
be before Dick came to the gallows. 

There was one more visitor at the 
abbey. And that was Mark Cray. 
Mark, how^ever, had been there but a 
day or two not for the wedding. He 
had come to bear off Leo Davenal : 
for the compagnon de voyage and pro- 
tector of Leo to the West Indies, was 
to be no other than Mark. 

Mark Cray was down in feather. 
Dreadfully so. After his wife’s death 
Mark had made his way to Paris, to 
enter upon the brilliant career he sup- 
posed to be in readiness for him. Not 
quite ready, however, he found when 
he got there ; some trifling prelim- 
inaries had to be completed yet. Mark 
thought nothing of the check : he 
was sanguine ; Barker was sanguine ; 
it was only a little delay ; and Mark 
amused himself most agreeably, look- 
ing at the villas in the Champs 
Elysees, against the time came that 
he should be ready to fix upon 
one. 

Mark’s friends in England heard 
nothing of him until the middle of 
the summer; and then Mark himself 
appeared among them uncommonly 
crestfallen. That something wras 
wrong, appeared evident. Mark gave 
little explanation, but new’’s was gath- 
ered from other sources. It appeared 
that Mr. Barker’s grand project with 
‘‘ finance” for its basis, had come to 
grief. At the very hour of its (ex- 
pected) fruition, the thing had in some 
ingenious manner dropped through, 
and thereby entailed some temporary 
inconvenience, not to say embarrass- 
ment on its two warm supporters. 
Barker and Mark. Of course it was 
entirely undeserved ; a most cruel 
stroke of adverse, ill-natured fate ; 
but nevertheless both of them had to 
bow to it. Mark Cmy came over to 
England ; and Barker was compelled 
to go into ignoble hiding, nobody 


OSWALD CRAY. 


375 


but himself knew where, while he 
smoothed his ruffled plumes, and gath- 
ered his forces for a fresh campaign. 

Reposing in quiet was all very well 
for Barker, who appeared to have 
some perpetual fund to draw upon 
somewhere : though in point of fact 
the man had not a penny in the world, 
and how he managed to get along in 
his tumbles down from luck, he alone 
could tell ; but it was not well for 
Mark Cray. Mark had not the grand 
genius of Barker — or whatever you 
may please to call it — the talent of 
extracting funds from some quarter or 
other for daily wants. If Mark was 
not ^Mn luck,’’ Mark stood a chance 
of starving. When Mark went back 
to London he had no home, no money, 
it may be said no friends ; and but for 
his meeting Captain Davenal one day 
accidentally, Mark could not, that he 
saw, have gone on at all. Later, some 
real luck did come to Mark. His late 
wife’s friends — \vho had never been 
made acquainted with the grand ex- 
pectations of the great Paris scheme 
— wrote to tell Mark that through the 
unexpected death of one of the medi- 
cal men in Barbadoes, an excellent 
practice might be secured by him if 
he chose to go out and step into it. 

Be you very sure Mark Cray did 
not hesitate. Hating the profession 
though he did, feeling an innate con- 
viction within himself that he was ill- 
qualified for it,, he yet decided to em- 
brace it again as his calling and oc- 
cupation in life. When it comes to 
starving with a man, there’s not much 
choice. So the decision was made, 
and Mark Cray was going out im- 
mediately to Barbadoes, and was to 
take charge of Leopold Davenal. 

Once before you saw Miss Davenal 
waiting in that abbey for the return 
of a bridegroom and bride from their 
wedding tour. She was so waiting 
in like manner now. Oswald Cray 
and his wife had visited Thorndyke 
for a day or two on their return, as 
they were ab^ut to visit Hallinghara, 
on their way to their new home in 
London. 

Hot as the guests of Sir Philip 


Oswald. Sir Philip had gone to that 
place where visiting is not ; and Sir 
Henry was the master of Thorndyke. 
He had wanted Oswald and Sara to 
stay the whole of their holiday there ; 
but they had preferred a greater 
change. 

Miss Davenal sat in her drawing- 
room. The October sun was getting 
low, but still the expected guests had 
not arrived. Hear to Miss Davenal, 
nursing a dancing baby that would 
not be coaxed to stillness, was a 
pretty, gentle woman, Mrs. Davenal. 
Leo stood at the window watching, 
and Mark Cray sat in a distant chair, 
restless, and pushing back his hair as 
usual. Mark did not altogether relish 
the expected presence of his half 
brother ; but there was no help for it. 
They had not met since Mark went 
off to Paris in the spring, largely tell- 
ing Oswald that his debt to him would 
be paid with interest ere the year was 
out, for Mark had studiously avoided 
Oswald since his return. 

^‘Is not that a carriage, Leo ?” 

^‘Ho, Aunt Bettina, it’s a baker’s 
cart going by.” 

Miss Davenal caught enough of the 
reply to know that it was not what 
she asked after. Where’s Richard ?” 
she presently said. 

“ I saw him over there on an engine 
just now,” was Leo’s answer, looking 
towards the station. 

'' Rose, my dear, that baby is tiring 
you. Let Leo ring for the nurse.” 

Mrs. Davenal laughed, and was 
about to say that the baby did not tire 
her, and she would rather keep him, 
when Dick burst in. 

“ It’s coming down the road ; it 
will be here in a minute. Look, Aunt 
Bett !” 

He dashed across the room to the 
window as he spoke. Example is 
contagious, and they all followed him. 
One of the Thorndyke carriages was 
drawing up to the door. Excitable 
Dick quitted the window and flew 
down again. 

They were soon in the room. Sara 
with her sweet face, at rest now, and 
Oswald behind her. A few moments 


376 


OSWALD CRAY. 


given to greeting, and Sara had taken 
the baby, and Oswald was shaking 
hands with his brother. 

“ I had no idea we should find you 
here, Mark.’’ 

Mark answered something which 
nobody could catch, and Captain Dave- 
nal came in. 

“ Is Henry Oswald with you ?” 

''No,” said Oswald. "He will be 
in Hallingham to-morrow. He sadly 
wanted us to stay longer with him, 
Miss Bettina, and go on straight to 
London from Thorndyke. What 
would you have said to that ?” 

" Thank you,” said Miss Davenal, 
hearing it was impossible to say 
what. " I shall be happy to see 
him.” 

"And so, Leo, we are soon to lose 
you !” whispered Sara, bending down 
to him. 

" We start from this to-morrow, 
Sara.” — 

" To-morrow ! So soon ! 

" It’s not soon enough,” put in 
Mark. " I don’t like being in Halling- 
ham. ” 

" Have you seen your old friends, 
Mark ?” asked Oswald. " Have you 
been out much ?” 

" I have not been out at all, and I 
have seen none of them,” responded 
Mark, gloomily. " I don’t want to 
see them.” 

" How’s Mr. Barker ? Have you 
heard from him lately ?” 

" I heard the day before I came 
here,” replied Mark, a shade of bright- 
ness rising to his countenance. " Bar- 
ker has all the luck of it in this world. 
He is in something good again.” 

" Again I” repeated Oswald, sup- 
pressing his inclination to smile. 

" So he writes me word. It’s some- 
thing he has taken in hand, and is 
going to perfect. If it comes to any 
thing I shall return from Barbadoes 
and join him.” 

" Oh,” said Oswald. " Well, Mark, 
I hope you will have a pleasant voy- 
age out there, and that you will find 
your sojourn all you can wish.” 

Dinner would soon be ready, and 
Sara was shown to her room. It 


overlooked the abbey grave-yard. 
She took off her bonnet and stood 
there, lost in many reminiscences of 
the past, in the changes that time had 
wrought, in the uncertain contempla- 
tion of the future. What would be 
poor Mark Cray’s future ? Would he 
abide at Barbadoes, applying himself, 
as well as his abilities allowed him, to 
the pursuit of his legitimate profes- 
sion ? — or would his unstable, w'eak 
mind be dazzled with these illegiti- 
mate and delusive speculations to the 
end until they engulfed him ? 

How strangely, wonderfully had 
the}’" been brought through clianges 
and their accompanying trials ! In this 
very room, where she now stood, Os- 
wald had been born. The poor little 
boy, sent adrift, as may be said, with- 
out a home, motherless, as good as 
fatherless, had worked out his own 
way in the world, striving always to 
make a friend of God. Ah, when did 
it ever fail ! It is the only sure help 
in life. 

And what had her own later troubles 
been ; her cares, anxieties, sorrows ! 
Looking back, Sara saw great cause 
to reproach herself : why had she so 
given vvay to despair ? It is true that 
she had never, in a certain sense, a 
degree, lost her trust in God : but she 
had not believed that there could be 
this bright ending. A little ray of 
the setting sun was reflected on the 
tombstone formerly noticed ; it fell on 
the significant inscription, "Buried in 
misery.” Sara wondered whether he, 
the unhappy tenant, had never learnt 
that great trust. 

So lost was she in thought that she 
did not notice any one had come into 
the room, until a hand was laid upon 
her shoulder. It was her husband’s. 
He put some letters down in the 
broad, old-fashioned window-seat. 

" They have been sent on to me 
here from the office,” he explained, as 
Sara glanced at them. "Business 
letters, all. In one there’s a bit of 
gossip, though : in Allffeter’s.” 

" Is one of them from Allister ?” 

" Yes. Jane’s going to be married. 
They have met with some Scotch 


OSWALD CRAY. 


gentleman out there, an old acquaint- 
ance of Jane’s, and things are settled. 
Frank says his tongue is broad Scotch, 
and he can’t understand half he says. 
Jane does, however, so it’s all 
right.” 

A smile played upon Sara’s lips, as 
she thought of the old jealousy. She 
might tell her husband of it some 
time. “ Does Mr. Allister keep well ?” 
she asked. 

He has been quite well ever since 
he went there : he says very strong. 
I hope it has set him up for life. What 
were you thinking of so deeply, Sara, 
that you did not hear me come in ?” 

At the moment I was thinking of 
that evening when you and I met 
there, in the grave-yard,” she an- 
swered, pointing down to it. What 
a miserable evening it was !” 

Don’t dwell on it, love. I cannot, 
without a pang of shame.” 

Nay, but it is pleasant to look 


377 

back upon now, Oswald. If only to 
contrast that time with this.” 

He shook his head with a sort of 
shiver, and relapsed into silence, his 
hand clasping hers. 

Oswald,” she resumed, in a low . 
tone, wonH you tell me what your 
suspicion was ?” 

I will tell you some time, Sara ; 
not now. Oh, my wife, my wife, how 
much is there in the past for many of 
us to repent of!” he continued, in 
what seemed an uncontrollable im- 
pulse. “ And it is only through God’s 
mercy that we do repent.” 

She laid her head upon his shoulder 
and let it rest there. Its safe-abiding 
place, so long as the world, for them, 
should last. 

Only through God’s mercy I My 
friends, may it be shed on us all 
throughout our pilgrimage in this 
chequered life, and ever abide with 
us unto the end. Fare you well. 


THE END 
































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